


Beauty Shot

by featherx



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bodyguard, Alternate Universe - Fashion & Models, Anal Sex, Bondage, M/M, Masturbation, Minor Ashe Duran | Ashe Ubert/Yuris Leclair | Yuri Leclerc, Past Linhardt von Hevring/My Unit | Byleth, Riding, top caspar/bottom linhardt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-06
Updated: 2020-09-01
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:47:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 44,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25103410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/featherx/pseuds/featherx
Summary: The first time Caspar sees Linhardt, Linhardt’s asleep. As Caspar later finds out, he shares this particular experience with pretty much everyone Linhardt’s ever met in his life.Caspar is the bodyguard assigned to fashion model Linhardt.
Relationships: Caspar von Bergliez/Linhardt von Hevring
Comments: 34
Kudos: 197





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> my side of an art/fic trade! prompt: exactly what it says on the summary. thanks for this!! it was super fun to write ❤
> 
> title comes from the modeling term, which is #5 on [this list](https://www.thebalanceeveryday.com/list-of-modeling-terms-and-phrases-for-models-2379479)

The first time Caspar sees Linhardt, Linhardt’s asleep. As Caspar later finds out, he shares this particular experience with pretty much everyone Linhardt’s ever met in his life.

Honestly, he hadn’t meant to be late on his first day of the job—it’s just that he got held up in traffic, and then it turns out he was following the wrong map the whole time, so he had to double back and get held up in traffic _again,_ and then he had to help a little girl rescue her cat from a tree (which was _not_ easy, Caspar’s arms sting with scratches and he probably has to get shots later or something), and then _just_ as he was about to step into the studio, Ashe texted him saying it was an emergency and he had to go buy a dozen sweet buns from the nearest restaurant ASAP. So, of course, Caspar had to find out sweet buns are, in fact, more expensive than he thought the hard way. He had nearly punched the ATM into submission.

Anyway, Caspar finally has the emergency sweet buns and he has finally entered the studio, never mind the fact that he’s almost an hour late by now. And, as mentioned earlier, Caspar finds Linhardt asleep—although the more accurate term may be _passed out_ —on a couch, still dressed in the designer clothes he’s probably supposed to be modeling right now.

From behind the couch, Ashe sighs and runs a hand through his frazzled hair while his other hand adjusts the camera resting against his chest. “Linhardt, come _on._ Just a few more photos, okay?”

“Five minutes…”

“You asked for five minutes half an hour ago!”

Caspar decides now is probably a good time to step forward and present the result of his hard work. “Ashe?” he calls, and Ashe whirls around in what is clearly desperate hope. “I, uh, brought the buns?”

“Caspar! Perfect timing!” Ashe gestures for him to come closer, and Caspar does so until he’s standing just in front of the couch. Up close, Linhardt looks even more of a mess, long green hair sticking to his face, the strands near his mouth probably wet with drool. Gross. “Can you, like, the buns…” Ashe points at Linhardt’s nose.

 _Ohhh._ Caspar thumbs the box open and waves it beneath Linhardt’s nose like smelling salts. Linhardt stirs, brow furrowing, before his eyes suddenly snap open and he snatches the box out of Caspar’s hands… or tries to, because fast as Linhardt’s arms move, Caspar is faster. “Whoa, whoa. Mornin’, there.”

“What…” Linhardt frowns, reluctantly sitting up and squinting at Caspar through his bedhead. (Couch-head?) “Who are you?”

“Linhardt, this is Caspar Bergliez,” Ashe says, scurrying from behind the couch to stand beside Caspar. “Remember when I said we found you a new bodyguard? Well, this is him! He’s less experienced than your past ones, but I can vouch for his skills.”

Caspar grins. “Nice to meet you, sir! I’ll do my best to—”

“Okay, okay, mm, alright.” Linhardt reaches out and makes grabby hands for the sweet buns again, which (after sending Ashe an inquiring look and getting a nod back) Caspar hands over. As Caspar had half-expected, Linhardt stuffs a bun in his mouth and doesn’t say anything else after that.

Ashe looks exhausted. “Linhardt, please? As soon as we finish up, you can head right home. And no need to wait for a taxi or anything either, Caspar here has a car.”

Linhardt shrugs and continues chewing his snack, already reaching for a second one from the box.

Ashe claps. “I’ll take that as a yes. Caspar, can you keep Linhardt company a sec? I’ll go set up.” And he hurries over to the rest of the photographers idling at the side.

Keep Linhardt company…? Caspar supposes he can do that. He takes a seat next to Linhardt on the couch, and tries not to feel too discouraged when Linhardt, without even glancing his way, scoots away from him until he’s on the far end of the couch. Caspar clears his throat. “So, uh, as I was saying earlier, I’ll do my best to work with you, sir. I—”

“No _sir,_ ” Linhardt mutters. “You heard Ashe. Just use my name or not at all.”

 _Sheesh, someone’s grumpy._ But this is all part of the job, right? Caspar nods, even if Linhardt still isn’t looking at him, and says, “My bad, Linhardt.”

“Mm.” Linhardt blinks, once, slow and sleepy. Caspar has to wonder if that’s how he makes the ‘bedroom eyes’ in his photos seem so natural. “Well, honestly,” Linhardt sighs, “it’s not like it matters. You’ll leave like the rest.”

By ‘the rest,’ Linhardt probably means the five other bodyguards he sent packing within the past few months. It’s certainly something Ashe hadn’t been able to stop mentioning, as if the process of searching for a new bodyguard every week had been traumatic. It definitely sounds like it. “Of course not,” Caspar says, inching just a bit closer so that at least a little bit of his face is in Linhardt’s peripheral vision. “I don’t know why the others left, but I’m committed to my job!”

Linhardt looks distinctly unconvinced. “Whatever you say.”

Caspar doesn’t know what that means or why Linhardt seems so cynical, but before he can say anything else, Ashe ushers Linhardt towards a small group of what looks like makeup artists, all of them muttering under their breaths and wielding hair brushes like weapons. Linhardt groans but lets himself be pulled away.

“What’s his problem?” Caspar pouts when Ashe flops onto the couch with a tired sigh. “It’s like he’s _planning_ on getting me fired.”

Ashe gives Caspar a world-weary look. “Probably because he is.”

“… _What?_ ”

“The past five bodyguards all left for the same reason: according to them, the person they’re protecting is a total bitch.” Ashe leans against the backrest, stretching his arms above his head. “None of them ever tell me _what_ Linhardt does, exactly, and Linhardt never answers my questions, so I’ve just been hunting new people down like I’m sending them to the slaughter. I think it’s because Linhardt doesn’t like being tailed around and watched so much, but we can’t be lax about security.”

“Right, yeah.” The whole reason Linhardt even needs a bodyguard is because of some anonymous messages that he’s been receiving recently. Ashe had shown Caspar one of them, and the threats had been… _creative,_ to say the least.

Ashe gives Caspar his infamous pleading look, the one that is disconcertingly similar to the emoji. “ _Please_ do your best to stick with him until the danger passes? I don’t have it in me to search for _another_ guy, and I’m actually pretty sure Linhardt’s well-known in the community as a horror story by now, so you’re my only hope, Caspar!”

“O-Oh, man, haha…” Caspar rubs the back of his head. He’s never been so pressured to do well before… probably because this is his first job, but that’s beside the point. “Hey, no problem, Ashe! You watch. I’ll make it so that this anonymous what’s-their-face is scramblin’ to get out of our hair!”

Ashe thanks Caspar around several hundred times, which really just pressures Caspar _more,_ until he has to return to where the cameras have all been set up—looks like Linhardt’s back to looking like the model he is and not the guy who had drooled all over his face, then. Caspar settles back against the couch, closing the box of sweet buns both to keep them from getting cold and to keep himself from sinking into temptation, and gives the studio a quick scan from where he is.

No one here looks particularly threatening, and no one here looks like they might want to send someone like Linhardt unnervingly-creative threats. Still, Caspar can’t help but wonder what Linhardt had done to warrant such messages anyway. Exist?

“Okay, Linhardt! Just like we showed you!” Ashe suddenly calls, and Caspar turns to look, and—

And—

_Oh._

Caspar has, of course, seen Linhardt before today—he’s a model, so even if he _weren’t_ Caspar’s client, it’s a little hard _not_ to see Linhardt. As far as Caspar knows, he’s popular largely because he’s some sort of prodigy, which Caspar is pretty sure is just another way of saying he’s nice-looking, since aren’t nice looks sort of what models are for? Even when seeing Linhardt’s face plastered on magazines and billboard advertisements, Caspar’s eyes had always just sort of glazed over. Nice face, blue eyes, okay, whatever. No big deal, just another model, right?

On edited, Photoshopped magazines and billboard advertisements, right. In person? Wrong. _So_ wrong.

When Linhardt isn’t asleep, drooling all over his own face, and stuffing himself with sweet buns, he looks… well, way more like the model he is. His hair is tied back in a half-bun, pulling his bangs away from his face, and color has been splashed across his eyelids so even his droopy, sleepy gaze holds a ridiculous amount of power. Now that Caspar’s getting a better look at him—or that Caspar is looking at him at all, really—he notices a bunch of little details he hadn’t earlier: the dangling star-and-moon earrings, the assortment of rings on his fingers, the choker snug around his neck. Everything just accentuates Linhardt’s natural beauty more until it’s near impossible to look directly at him.

Caspar’s hardly aware he’s staring until he makes uncomfortable eye contact with a random cameraman who passes in front of him, and Caspar hurriedly turns away lest someone catch the visible heat on his cheeks. How is it at all fair that models look better in person than they do in photos, when half their career relies on how they look in photos!?

Or maybe it’s not a model thing. Maybe it’s a Linhardt thing. That sounds annoyingly likely.

There isn’t much to do while the photo shoot continues, and Caspar doesn’t want to spend too much time blatantly gawking at Linhardt when he poses this way and that, so he fishes out his phone and plays several stressful rounds of Tetris to keep busy. By the time the shoot is finished, Caspar’s beaten his high score three times and Ashe looks on the verge of death. “Good job, everyone,” he wheezes. “That’s it for today!”

Linhardt lunges towards Caspar like a rabid dog, and Caspar nearly panics until he remembers the box of sweet buns next to him, which Linhardt begins to ravage near-immediately. Ashe follows at a more sedate pace. “Do you have anywhere else to go, Linhardt?”

Linhardt shakes his head, cheeks bulging like a squirrel hoarding food for the winter. Caspar’s beginning to remember why it had taken him so long to see how pretty Linhardt actually is.

“Okay, great! Caspar?”

Caspar nods, though he has to stare at a spot just below Linhardt’s left eye to keep himself from stuttering. “Will do. I’ll bring you straight home, s—ahem, Linhardt. You can eat in the car.”

Thankfully, Linhardt doesn’t argue, and after they both bid Ashe a goodbye, Caspar leads Linhardt down to the parking lot. Caspar had figured Linhardt might be a bit on his guard considering the looming, anonymous threat, but even in the dark and dreary lot, he’s still munching away on what must be his fourth sweet bun and looking like he’s physically incapable of caring less about getting offed.

Caspar opens the car door for him. “You’re not scared of anything, Linhardt?”

“Of course not,” Linhardt dryly mutters. “I have a big strong bodyguard to protect me, after all.” He takes a bite out of the bun as if biting Caspar’s head off. “You know my address?”

“Sure thing. It’s the apartment some half an hour away, right?” Caspar climbs in behind the wheel, fiddles with the GPS a minute, and sighs in relief when it doesn’t malfunction for once. “Uh, anything you wanna tell me about? Y’know, something that might help figure out who this guy targeting you even is?”

Linhardt shrugs, a slow, languid motion that is far more captivating than a shrug should be. “I don’t know. Plenty of people have plenty of reasons.”

Caspar nearly runs into another car in surprise. “ _What?_ ” Ashe had said he couldn’t think of why anyone would want to hurt Linhardt, and Ashe is nothing but an expert at overthinking things. “Go on?”

There’s no response for a moment as Linhardt chews thoughtfully. “I started modeling when I was sixteen, five years ago,” he begins. “A street model. It was just a part-time job then, because I was pissy and I didn’t want to ask my father for money. I didn’t take it that seriously, but for some reason I got scouted by huge modeling agencies.” He sighs and rests his head against the window. “So it could be a fellow street model jealous I rose higher up while they didn’t. Or it could be someone within the agency who doesn’t like me. Or it could be some people on the Internet who have a problem with me. Goodness knows the amount of people on the Internet who have a problem with everything.”

Caspar barks out a laugh at that one, if only because he knows it’s true. Linhardt slants a bemused look towards him, but doesn’t continue, which must mean he’s done. “Guess it does sound like a lot of possibilities,” Caspar says, handing over his parking ticket. “It’s been a few months since the last message came in, right?”

“Yes,” Linhardt says, voice prickly, “which is why I am quite sure this means whoever was sending them has given up or grown bored by now. I have no need of a bodyguard, thank you very much.”

“Mmhm. But it’s also possible they’re biding their time and waiting for the right opportunity to strike. Such as when you _don’t_ have a big strong bodyguard around.”

Linhardt’s mouth is a thin, displeased line. “Just wait,” he mutters, almost too soft for Caspar to hear. “You’ll leave too.”

Arguing seems pointless, and words don’t always do much in way of convincing. Caspar decides to stay silent instead, pretending he hadn’t heard, and lets Linhardt fiddle with the radio stations for the rest of the drive.

For such a rich person, Linhardt sure lives small.

Caspar had been expecting him to take up an entire floor of the building, but as Linhardt tells him which floor and what number, it’s clear that it’s just a regular unit. That becomes even more obvious when Linhardt opens the door to a studio apartment that looks like someone had ransacked it after a hurricane had blown past.

Linhardt ignores Caspar’s gaping and steps inside, crouching down to unlace his boots and toss them towards the general direction of a pile of… more boots. “Alright, you escorted me home and whatever,” he says, yawning widely. “Now go, uh, home. Or wherever bodyguards go after work.”

Caspar pulls himself together and dutifully answers, “I’m tasked to stay with you at all times, Linhardt.”

“You are not,” Linhardt tells him, so surely and decisively that Caspar nearly believes him. “At all times? Really? This place has _one bed._ ”

“The floor is fine with me.”

“It is not,” Linhardt says, using the exact same tone as earlier. Caspar has a feeling he’s gotten his way more than once just by speaking like this to other people. “I’d be more comfortable with someone trying to murder me than I would be with a stranger sleeping on my floor. Also, it’s hardly any good for your back.”

Caspar reaches behind himself to rub at his back. “Nah. It’ll be kinda like endurance training!”

Linhardt scowls and shakes his head. “If you work for me, doesn’t my word go? Look, it’s final. Either you leave right now, or—”

He turns around and stops dead in the middle of his sentence.

Caspar blinks. “Uh, Linhardt?” It occurs to him that this is the first time Linhardt has actually looked at him all day, since the rest of the time he was either busy with the sweet buns or busy with the photo shoot, or just plain staring straight ahead instead of meeting Caspar’s eyes. “Hello? You were saying?”

Linhardt’s mouth opens and closes like a fish out of water. Is he staring? Caspar tries not to squirm in place, figuring Linhardt’s just a bit taken aback or something, but staying calm gets progressively more difficult when Linhardt’s gaze visibly slides down to ogle the chest harness Caspar’s wearing. He really wishes he hadn’t taken his jacket off now. “Uh,” Caspar tries again, “Linhardt, hey. You there?”

Linhardt blinks rapidly. “Oh. Ah. Ahem.” He’s still definitely staring, but at least he’s speaking again. “Right. Either you… Either you leave right now, or… go… take a shower and make yourself at home…”

“Huh?” Did he hear that right?

Linhardt only makes the effort to shuck off his coat before flopping onto the giant bed at the end of the room. “You smell sweaty,” Linhardt says, voice muffled into a giant pillow he buries his face in. “I, uh, I have an early shoot for something tomorrow, so you should… stay the night. So you’re not late in the morning.”

“Uh,” Caspar says, for what must be the third time within the past five minutes, “okay? Okay, that’s cool. What shampoo can I—”

“Just go!”

“Right!” Caspar kicks off his own shoes and scrambles into the bathroom, which is just as pitifully small as the rest of the place. He’d had the foresight to bring along an extra uniform in his bag, so at least he doesn’t have to borrow and drown in any of Linhardt’s probably-oversized clothes, but what had been with Linhardt’s weird change? And the _staring?_ If Linhardt had stared any longer, Caspar’s not sure what would’ve happened.

Oh, well. Caspar peels his sweat-damp clothes off of him, trying to recall any nearby laundromats he had passed by on the drive here, and steps into the shower. The heater is broken, and the only reason it isn’t fixed yet is probably because Linhardt just can’t be bothered to tell the landlord about it, and despite the ridiculously wide variety of shampoo bottles lining the rack, there’s only one pathetic bar of soap. Even the shower mat is giving off a suspicious smell that Caspar doesn’t want to look into.

For such a rich person, Caspar thinks again, Linhardt sure lives like modeling is still his part-time job.

After toweling off, Caspar dresses and steps out of the bathroom, opening his mouth to tell Linhardt he’s done before hearing the soft snores from the bed. Seriously, had Caspar even been in the shower long enough for anyone to fall asleep? Then again, this _is_ Linhardt, whose skills and talents are only hampered by his laziness and irresponsibility… or so the articles say. Caspar had flipped through the magazines Ashe had given him and decided the tiny print wasn’t worth reading.

Caspar treads lightly, picking his way through the apartment floor like watching for land mines, until he stands just beside Linhardt on the bed. He hadn’t bothered making himself comfortable, having fallen asleep with the blankets at his legs and the box of sweet buns still in his arms, one edge digging against his cheek.

Linhardt the model is pretty, Caspar knows that. But Linhardt like this, hair askew and mouth open, looks just as good too, now that he thinks about it.

He arranges the blankets to tuck beneath Linhardt’s chin, places the sweet buns box on the bedside dresser, and settles on the floor next to the bed to play another game of Tetris. If nothing else, Caspar thinks contentedly, the apartment has decent air-conditioning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> based caspar's outfit off of [this art](https://twitter.com/dctr_spoiler/status/1277655010826846209), god bless. fun fact, i initially had trouble deciding on whose POV to write this in, because if it's caspar's then i can wax poetic about how beautiful linhardt is, and if it's linhardt's then i can talk about caspar's chest harness for 5 paragraphs straight. somehow i managed to fit both in :)


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Caspar sits up, trying not to look or sound as groggy as he feels. “Uh, what’s up? Is it time for your shoot already?”
> 
> Linhardt nods. “You sleep so deeply,” he says, perfectly serious.
> 
> “ _I_ sleep deeply?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this AU has gotten really good reception so far so thank you very much!!! (especially for all the art omg mari and i are over the moon 😭) i've been getting brain worms for this fic lately - and by brain worms i mean i have an elaborate outline detailed from start to finish - so i'll be setting weekends aside to work on this fic :)
> 
> anyway, here's the second chapter!! please enjoy!

Linhardt somehow sleeps all the way through the afternoon and evening of that day without waking once, despite Caspar’s best attempts; in the end, Caspar gets takeout for the both of them and places Linhardt’s in his (empty) mini-fridge.

It must be some time around four in the morning when Linhardt finally stirs awake. “Hey,” he mutters, “C… Casper, right? Hey, wake up.”

“Caspar,” Caspar corrects, but sits up anyway, trying not to look or sound as groggy as he feels. “Uh, what’s up? Is it time for your shoot already?”

Linhardt nods. “You sleep so deeply,” he says, perfectly serious.

“ _I_ sleep deeply?” Caspar mumbles, steadying himself on the bed frame as Linhardt, already looking more awake than all the other times Caspar’s seen him, slides off the bed and heads into the bathroom.

Once they get in the car, Linhardt logs the address in the GPS and leans back against the seat, sighing deeply. Caspar hands over his reheated curry and a pair of utensils that he’d found lying pathetically in the dusty corner of one of the cabinets he had scoured earlier. “You skipped dinner, so you might as well have this for breakfast.”

“How thoughtful of you,” Linhardt mumbles—he speaks so tonelessly that Caspar genuinely can’t tell if he’s being sarcastic or not. He makes a little appreciative sound when he takes his first bite, and cleans off the rest of the takeout box before Caspar’s even backed out of the parking. “I need to be there in, mm, half an hour. Is that fine?”

Caspar squints at the estimated duration. “Uh, this says it’ll take an hour.” Already expecting some kind of tantrum, he hurriedly adds, “But I know the best ways to cut through traffic, so just—”

“An hour?” Linhardt repeats, sounding pleasantly surprised. “Thank goodness. The less time I spend with photographers, the better.”

He isn’t acting all antagonistic anymore, so Caspar supposes some small talk would be okay. “Sounds kinda contradictory for a model.”

“I don’t mind Ashe,” Linhardt sighs, “but that’s as far as I go. Camera flashes are such a bother.”

He doesn’t offer anything else, so neither does Caspar, even if it feels like there’s something else buried in his words.

Considering it’s a reasonable time of four in the morning, the roads are fairly empty; Linhardt messes with the radio stations again, never satisfied with one for too long, making it a bit of a challenge to make out the GPS directions throughout the varying music. “We’ll be there in another ten minutes,” Caspar tells him, trying to suppress a yawn.

“Ten minutes?” Linhardt sounds disgusted. “No. Absolutely not. I’m making them wait for _me_ this time. Can you stop at the McDonald’s over there?”

“I thought you needed to be there—”

“No, I do not,” Linhardt says, as decisively as before, and Caspar decides against arguing further.

The McDonald’s over there is pitifully understaffed, but at least Caspar, Linhardt, and some other man are the only customers right now. Linhardt orders an entire meal set, but only gets the packet of fries for himself before pushing the tray over to Caspar instead. “Uh, what?” Caspar laughs. “Dude—I mean, ahem. Linhardt, don’t you want the rest of these?”

Linhardt munches on a fry extremely slowly, then says, “Dude?”

Caspar winces. “It slipped out. I’m sor—”

“You can be casual with me,” Linhardt interrupts, a fry dangling from his mouth. “You already are, but you don’t have to be polite or anything.”

“Are you… telling me to call you ‘dude?’”

Linhardt toys with the fry. “If you want,” he says, after a significant pause. His eyes droop a little, as if he’s ready to head back to bed, though somehow Caspar doesn’t think he’s sleepy at all. “But there are other things you can call me.”

“Oh, okay.” Caspar mulls it over a little. “So, like… ‘bro?’”

Linhardt stares at him, then sighs and drops his head against the table, still munching away on the fry. “Sure. Whatever. And yes, just eat all of that, as slowly as you can.”

Caspar looks back down at the tray—there’s a huge burger the size of Caspar’s hand, a humongous glass of Coke, and ten threatening chicken nuggets. Pretty standard meal, really. “You should eat more,” Caspar insists anyway, frowning up at Linhardt. “You’re awful thin, you know.”

“On a diet.” Linhardt punctuates his sentence by shoving five fries in his mouth at once.

“Your diet lets you eat fries and sweet buns?”

“It’s my diet and I get to choose the menu,” Linhardt explains, if that can be called an explanation. Caspar decides, not for the first time, that arguing is going to be worthless and picks up the burger instead.

As it turns out, the photo shoot is for a jewelry brand, and the photographers only care about Linhardt’s hands. Caspar knows this not just because they say it outright, but also because most of them can’t seem to stop staring at Linhardt’s fingers as if making adjustments in their head as soon as Linhardt steps in the studio. “We scheduled this nearly an hour ago,” some important-looking man snaps.

Linhardt idly picks at his nails. “The last time I worked with you, _you_ were nearly an hour late. Simply returning the favor.”

“That was _eight months ago…_ with all due respect, sir.”

“Time hardly dulled my frustration from that day,” Linhardt primly responds. From where he’s leaning against the wall near the front door, Caspar mentally adds ‘angry clients’ to the list of people who might be out for Linhardt’s life. “Well? Shall we begin?”

From what Caspar can gather, Linhardt’s far too good a model to risk upsetting—and, well, Caspar doesn’t really know much about modelling or anything, but he can tell Linhardt’s fingers, long and slender, are perfect for advertising rings. They make him try on several different sorts, ranging from simple silver bands to elaborate diamond-studded rings, then somehow persuade him to test out a necklace despite Linhardt’s huffing and grumbling. Caspar can’t entirely blame them—Linhardt’s throat is long and pale, and his collarbones jut out for the necklace chain to rest nicely against.

…And this is the part where Caspar realizes he’s been staring a little too long. He directs his eyes to the ceiling, counts from one to ten, looks back at Linhardt _still_ wearing the necklace, and repeats from step one. Did the past five bodyguards have this problem too?

Speaking of the past five bodyguards, Caspar wonders why they had all left. Sure, Linhardt was a little… testy at first, but that hardly warrants being called a ‘bitch.’ Since he woke up this morning, Linhardt’s been acting pretty decent, if maybe a little eccentric for normal people standards. Was Linhardt just sleep-deprived yesterday? That actually makes a lot of sense.

“Caspar.” Linhardt’s slipping his usual rings back on his fingers again, and Caspar snaps to attention. Unfortunately, this means he pays way too much attention to the unnecessary details, like how the inset gems on the rings are mostly greens and blues. It makes Caspar wonder if Linhardt had bought them himself, or if they had been gifts from others instead. “We’re done here. Can we go?”

“Oh, yeah, of course.” Caspar chances a glance over Linhardt’s shoulder, unsurprised to find the important-looking man from earlier glaring at his back. “You sure that guy isn’t the one who sent the anonymous messages, though?”

Linhardt shrugs. “If it is, my big strong bodyguard will take care of him. So? Let’s go.”

Honestly, if driving Linhardt to and from different studios is all Caspar has to do, this job isn’t so bad at all. “Anywhere else you wanna go?” Caspar asks once he slides into the driver’s seat. Linhardt is already jabbing at the car radio once again.

“Anywhere else…?” Linhardt gives him an odd look. “Is it really alright for me to be going out in public?”

“We were just in a McDonald’s earlier?” Caspar reminds him.

“Yes, but that was at four in the morning, so it doesn’t count.” Linhardt settles on a station playing songs from the 80s and leans back against his seat. “My previous bodyguards would always take me straight back to the apartment. I don’t think they ever even asked me if I wanted to go somewhere…”

“Well, I’m not like your previous bodyguards,” Caspar declares, thumping his chest with a fist and grinning as reassuringly as possible. “I already told you, right? I promise I won’t disappoint!”

Linhardt huffs, and Caspar’s not sure if it’s an amused huff or a huff of disdain. “You say that so easily.”

“Hmm? Say what?”

“That word. Promise.” Linhardt stares out the window. It’s around 5:30am now, and the sun is just beginning to peek over the horizon. “They said it too, the first few days. You see what happened.”

Caspar frowns. “I mean, I can’t give up on you so easily, Linhardt.” _You’re kind of my main source of income._ “Why did they leave anyway? You’re not a bad person.”

Linhardt doesn’t respond for a moment, picking at his nails again… or, no, Caspar realizes—he’s twisting the rings around his fingers, over and over, like a nervous habit Linhardt himself isn’t even aware of. Then, finally, “You don’t know that.”

Caspar means to protest, but Linhardt leans over and switches the station to one playing ridiculously loud heavy metal music, which is as much of a dismissal as one can get.

“Linhardt!” Caspar calls, though all he gets is a tired groan from the other man curled up in a tangled mess of blankets on the bed. “Come on, wake up. Didn’t you say you had to go somewhere in an hour?”

“Is it twelve already?” Linhardt mutters. “I could’ve sworn it was still six…”

Caspar doesn’t answer that, largely because it’s already one in the morning and Linhardt had fallen asleep at around 4:30 in the afternoon. He holds out the cute cat-shaped mug he’d discovered in Linhardt’s cabinets instead, waving the rim under Linhardt’s nose in hopes that the smell of freshly-brewed coffee will somehow wake him up a little more. With a sigh, Linhardt takes the mug in his hands, bumps his nose against the cat ears a few times, then takes a sip.

He promptly spits the coffee out all over himself. “C-Caspar!” Linhardt shouts, looking more awake than Caspar’s ever seen him before. “What _is_ this? It tastes like shit!”

“Oh. Uh.” Caspar’s never heard Linhardt swear before either. It’s only been around a week, sure, but Linhardt doesn’t really look like the sort of person to swear… and Caspar should probably be focusing on something else right now. “S-Sorry! You don’t like coffee? Or did I make it wrong?”

“This is _coffee?_ ” Linhardt kicks the coffee-stained blankets off himself, slides off the bed, and hurries into the bathroom at a speed Caspar struggles to keep up with. “I _hate_ coffee,” he says, somehow sounding even more exhausted than before he’d went to sleep, and slams the bathroom door shut behind him.

Caspar stares meekly down at the cat mug Linhardt had shoved back in his hands. “I’m _really sorry!_ ” he shouts through the door. “I didn’t know, Linhardt!”

The only thing that answers him is the spray of the shower. Caspar sighs and finishes off the rest of his own coffee. Why would Linhardt have a coffee machine in his apartment if he doesn’t even like coffee? Granted, it had still been in the box it had probably come with, but still. Also, Caspar really wanted to use the cat mug. It’s adorable. Look at its little ears—okay, ahem, more importantly, _now what?_ Has Caspar screwed up after just a week on the job?

He putters helplessly outside the bathroom for the longest twenty minutes of his life until Linhardt steps out, a towel around his shoulders and looking marginally less disgruntled than earlier. “Stop right there,” Linhardt sighs, when Caspar opens his mouth. “I don’t need more apologies. Urgh. I just… that was _too bitter,_ Caspar. Far, far too bitter. By far, that was bitter.”

“Sor—” Caspar clears his throat. “How can I make it up to you?”

“Hm… make it sweeter.”

Caspar pauses. “Huh?”

“Sweeter,” Linhardt repeats. He sits down at the edge of his bed, tossing the towel to a random direction and grabbing his hairdryer instead. “I hate bitter things, but surely coffee can be sweetened. Put some sugar in it then let me try again.”

“Oh! Okay, yeah, cool, I can do that!”

Blessedly enough, there’s a small half-full jar of sugar in the mini-fridge, and Caspar contemplates on how much to add for a moment before deciding on upending the entire container’s contents into the drink. It’s still nice and hot enough for the sugar to melt fairly quickly, and Caspar presents it to Linhardt as soon as he’s done. “Here. It might be too sweet, though, I kinda used all the sugar…”

“Hmm.” Linhardt takes an incredibly cautious sip, but his lips twist into a frown still. At least he doesn’t spit it out again. “It tastes the same.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yes, I’m serious. _You_ try it.”

Caspar tries it, and nearly chokes on the sweetness. “Dude—Linhardt, this is sweet enough to kill. Are you sure it’s still bitter?”

“Bitter as ever.” Linhardt yawns and tugs idly at the collar of his blouse. He’s already changed into the clothes he needs to be in for today’s schedule, and though they’re still fashionable and stylish and several other adjectives Caspar can only dream of using for himself, they also look… _really_ easy to change out of, for some reason. “Let’s go? I’d like to get this over with quickly.”

“Right, got it…” Caspar looks down at the coffee, saccharine sweet, and steels himself as he chugs it down as fast as he can before leaving the mug in the kitchenette sink to wash later and grabbing his car keys.

Today’s schedule is the most packed it’s been for the past week: a shoot for a fast-fashion brand, a long three-hour drive to a small dressmaker at the very edge of the city, then driving the three hours back as fast as Caspar can because they have to actually make it in time to yet another shoot for a shampoo brand. Linhardt worries about getting there early for maybe five minutes max, then sighs and says, “Ah, well,” and fishes out a USB stick from his bag to plug in the car radio.

If Caspar tries, he can probably squish the three hours into two and a half, though it really isn’t much better. “Why does it have to be in the sports center anyway?” he groans, smacking the steering wheel when the traffic light turns red _right_ before he would’ve made it. Sometimes he really wants nothing more than to just floor it, but unfortunately, there’s a model in the car with him.

“It’s anti-chlorine propaganda,” Linhardt says, rolling his eyes. Something that sounds suspiciously like an anime opening song starts playing from the radio. “It’ll be something like… when you go for a swim in the pool, chlorine screws up your hair. But the shampoo they’re advertising can fix it, whatever. They rented out the swimming pool in the center just for this, so I dearly hope they earn the money back… not.”

“Oh, cool.” The car ahead of them suddenly swerves to the side, and Caspar has to think happy thoughts and cute kittens to keep himself from swearing up a storm. “Does that mean you have to swim?” Linhardt, though tall, long, and lanky, hardly looks like he can do more than float in water and maybe blow some bubbles.

“I just have to be in the water a little while. I don’t mind, it’s a terribly hot day.” Linhardt gives the car’s huffing air vents a pointed glance. “Is this your car? Or the company’s?”

“Mine,” Caspar answers, torn between sounding proud and ashamed at the same time. “Er, sorry, I don’t have a lot of cash to get this baby fixed… but at least the radio works, right? Ahaha…”

Linhardt doesn’t seem amused, though his irritation is soon replaced by curiosity. “Do you not work with a company?”

Caspar shakes his head. “Too much trouble. And I wouldn’t want to work for a client who doesn’t deserve it anyway.”

“What… do you mean?”

“You know. People who are _actually_ bad enough to warrant more than just anonymous death threats.” Caspar waves a hand in the space between them. “The reason I became a bodyguard at all is ‘cause I want to protect people who can’t protect themselves. But billionaires who keep all their money locked up and never really do anything with it? It’s annoying. I might beat them up if I got assigned to them. So I work alone. Ashe and I studied in the same high school, so that’s how we know each other.”

Linhardt doesn’t respond for a while, leaning back against his seat instead and murmuring something in acknowledgement. The music transitions from the upbeat song to something that sounds solemn and somber, which Caspar cannot for the life of him understand. Has Linhardt never made a playlist in his life?

“I see,” Linhardt says, at last. They’re still stuck in the same spot as earlier because of the traffic so Caspar can’t really tell how long it took for him to speak, but it _felt_ long. “I didn’t know.”

“Uh, it’s cool. I didn’t expect you to.” Caspar frowns. “Wait, if you’re gonna get in the water, don’t you need swim shorts or something?”

“Oh, it’s alright. I’m already wearing it.”

“You’re already wha—” Caspar turns to look at him just as Linhardt unbuttons the upper part of his blouse. Caspar gets exactly one look at the hem line of a black swimsuit before he nearly crashes into the car in front of them. “Jesus!”

Linhardt stares at him, apparently unbothered by the hard brake. “Why are you surprised? Of course I’m already wearing it. Saves me the trouble of changing later.”

“I-I-I-I-I’m not surprised,” Caspar stammers out, not sure how many tries it had taken him to get more than one letter out of his mouth. His thoughts are running a mile a minute, which is a lot faster than the traffic right now, and he can’t stop staring at that hint of black from the corner of his eye. Why hadn’t Linhardt just gone with some plain old swim shorts? Why a _swimsuit?_ Even if Linhardt is weak under the sun (and he is), the swimming pool in the sports center is _roofed!_

Linhardt, for his part, doesn’t seem to care. “Okay,” is all he offers before reaching up to fiddle with the large golden hoop earrings he’d gone with for today. Wait, is he going to wear those to the pool too? Now that Caspar looks at him— _really_ looks at him—he’s wearing a choker again today, just a plain black one rather than the one he had worn on their first meeting, and there are matching bands around both his wrists. Even the black ribbon heels he’s worn all day would go with the swimsuit…

“Wait a minute,” Caspar realizes, “did the company _tell_ you to wear that?”

“What, the swimsuit?” Linhardt frowns. “Hm… they did sort of… encourage it, I suppose is the word. I believe they told me to coordinate an outfit, but I was lazy and went with the bare minimum.”

“You call _that_ a bare minimum?”

“It’s also my absolute maximum.” Linhardt leans back against his seat, yawning and stretching his arms over his head. His blouse rides up, and Caspar has to force himself to keep his eyes on the road. “Can we hurry up? I’m getting sleepy…”

When they arrive at the sports center some indeterminable amount of time later—Caspar’s mind has been thoroughly destroyed and incapable of processing the passage of time anymore—the employees gathered there immediately begin to fuss over Linhardt, and Caspar has to actually stick by his side rather than stay by the doorway this time, doing his absolute best to shut down anyone taking photos with their cell phones and jumping around to defend Linhardt’s body (Linhardt himself doesn’t seem to care).

Honestly, it’s not like Caspar’s jealous _they_ get to ogle Linhardt all they like while Caspar has to be professional and do his job. Really. It’s not as if Caspar wants to ingrain the sight to memory when Linhardt shrugs off his blouse and steps out of his shorts to show off the absolutely indescribable way the black swimsuit hugs his body and accentuates every curve…

And okay, Caspar should probably stop staring. He gathers Linhardt’s clothes up in his arms, trying not to wrinkle them like last time, and hangs them up on a nearby clothesline as the commercial director jabbers on to Linhardt about this and that, the words too far away for Caspar to hear. He finds a relatively-dry bench to perch on and watches anxiously from a distance—the employees who aren’t cameramen have probably seen their fill now and don’t _look_ like they’re trying to take photos, but Caspar can’t be sure. Linhardt may not mind, but Caspar definitely does!

…Although _why_ is the question here, he supposes. A question he most certainly doesn’t have to answer.

The commercial itself is kind of ridiculous—most of what they do is film Linhardt coming out of the water in a million different angles, including from behind when he bends over to pick up his heels, something Caspar nearly explodes at. Then they have him flip his damp hair over his shoulder, so water droplets can fly out and sparkle beautifully in the fluorescent lights. Finally, and this one’s the kicker, after Linhardt ‘uses’ the shampoo, one of the employees nearby is called over to act as some random guy walking over to get all close and touchy-feely with Linhardt’s hair… _supposedly,_ anyway, because he touches pretty much every part of Linhardt’s body _except_ for his hair.

By the time the shoot is done, Caspar has just about had it. “We’re finished, right?” he says, more brusquely than usual, but the situation calls for it.

The director, who had been in the middle of showering Linhardt in praise he clearly isn’t listening to, blinks and gives him a confused look. “Er, my deepest apologies. Who are you again?”

Caspar bristles. “His _bodyguard._ I’d thank you not to bother Linhardt more than you already have, sir.” Formal talk doesn’t come as easy to him as it does to Linhardt, but he’s found that imitating his father’s and older brother’s arrogance and adding a bit of haughty spice to it usually does the job.

“Umm,” Linhardt starts, then pauses, and seems to decide speaking isn’t worth the trouble, because he leans back with a little yawn and waves at Caspar, as if telling him, _meh, whatever, go ahead._

“Well, Mr. Bodyguard,” the director laughs, actually _laughs,_ the _nerve,_ “Linhardt and I were just having a lovely talk here. But yes, you’re right, I suppose we’re done… for now. Linhardt, you _will_ work with us again, won’t you?”

Linhardt shrugs. “Sure.”

“Wonderful!” He claps his hands together gleefully, which is funny, because Caspar wants to clap his skull together too, but with his fists. “You know, you _so_ remind me of your mother. You act just as beautifully as her, if not better!”

That, of all things, is what turns Linhardt’s neutral expression into one of familiar disdain. “Don’t dishonor her,” he snaps, much to the director’s (and Caspar’s) surprise. “I don’t act half as well as she did. Consider my rates doubled next time for that.”

“Wh—”

“Caspar.” Linhardt jerks his head towards the door.

Caspar has to mentally slap himself to keep a grin off his face. “Understood. Everyone, please excuse us—hey, you over there, quit it! I said no photos!”

Once they get back in the (now stifling-hot) car, Linhardt throws his blouse back on and shimmies his shorts up his legs, but groans as he leans against the back rest. “What a pain,” he grumbles; then, with increasing exhaustion, “what a pain, what a pain, what a pain, what a _pain._ ”

Caspar turns up the air conditioning as good as it can go, but he isn’t surprised when only hot air blows in all the same. “Anywhere else?” he asks, keeping his tone as gentle as possible.

Linhardt shakes his head, staring blankly up at the car ceiling. “Done for today. But stop by the milk tea place, the one near the apartment. I need something sweet.”

“Got it.” Caspar scowls at some of the employees he sees walking in the parking lot as well, and has to remind himself it’d be kind of unethical to run them over. “Uh… I didn’t know your mom’s a model too, Linhardt.”

Thankfully, Linhardt doesn’t sound angry when he responds. “She’s not. She was an actress.” A pause, where for once he only stares out of the car windows instead of messing with the radio. “She died almost ten years ago.”

“O-Oh. I’m sor—”

“Don’t. I’m tired of those words.” Linhardt sighs. “She was fond of this company, for whatever reason. Used to work with them often. That’s the only reason I bother with these perverted idiots who sell their products exclusively through commercials like the one you unfortunately just bore witness to.”

Caspar tries for a casual shrug, but he realizes he can’t muster anything remotely casual right now. “It seriously pissed me off,” he growls, then hurries to add, “but of course, I’m, uh, I’m cool with anything you do, Linhardt.”

“Don’t be. I’d rather someone argue rather than just sit there and accept whatever I say.”

The words are heavy, as if there’s some other meaning behind them, and Caspar itches to ask—but he swallows the question down, remembers his place. He shouldn’t be protective of Linhardt for any other reasons aside from because it’s his job, shouldn’t even be speaking so casually with him. He’s just a bodyguard, and Linhardt’s just his client. There are boundaries he shouldn’t be crossing, boundaries that were erected to keep him firmly in place on the other side, far away from a celebrity model like Linhardt.

Is it so bad to just want to be his friend, though?

“My father is a doctor,” Linhardt mumbles. Without music, even his soft voice is easy enough to hear. “When my mother died, he belittled her, said it was because she followed foolish dreams and ideals instead of aiming for a more stable, reasonable job. I’m hardly any good at acting, but I practiced just to spite him.” In an even lower tone, he mutters, “Even if she’s dead, I’d want at least one parent to still be proud of me.”

Caspar doesn’t know what to say to that, but he figures he doesn’t have to—Linhardt finally leans over to turn on the radio, and skips ahead to a screamo song on his USB. Once again, Caspar hopes Linhardt never gets access to Spotify.

At the milk tea place, Linhardt stands under the air conditioner and soaks up the coolness while Caspar places his order at the counter. “I’ll be busier in the late evening tomorrow,” Linhardt says, playing idly with the receipt. “I won’t leave the house for the rest of today and half of tomorrow, so you can go home if you like.”

“No way! I have to be with you at all times, remember? What if something comes up while I’m gone?” Caspar grins up at him. Linhardt is already taller, but with heels, he almost has a whole head over him. “I live alone, so it’s not like anyone’s missing me.”

“But still—” Linhardt starts—and doesn’t continue, because he blinks as if waking from a dream, then swivels his head to stare behind him through the glass walls of the shop.

Caspar follows his gaze, but there’s nothing across the street aside from an old building, all its windows closed and curtains shuttered. “What is it?”

“Oh…” Linhardt frowns. “I thought I felt…”

Caspar waits, but after another lengthy pause, Linhardt turns back to him and shakes his head. “No, never mind. It was nothing.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- [linhardt's cat mug](https://twitter.com/featherxs/status/1284807189429751808). i would link the product page but i have no idea where my sister bought these so just have a picture of it and her affogato  
> \- hope everyone caught the meme references here  
> \- linhardt's swim-outfit from [this art!](https://twitter.com/ravensique/status/1280195178700120064)  
> \- there's like, barely any canon info about casphardt's parents, so it's free real estate


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “This is ridiculous.”
> 
> Linhardt yawns. “I don’t see the big de—”
> 
> “Of course you can’t see the big deal,” Caspar groans. “There’s _nothing to see._ How have you lived this long with an empty fridge!?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> earlier chapter for danie on ko-fi! thank you for donating ❤  
> i wrote all of this in like, one day while binge-listening to taylor swift, so i'll have to do edits tomorrow because it's 12am right now lol. please enjoy! also note for risque/slight NSFW from hereon, which is why i changed the rating. (bet it's gonna change again. bet.)

“This is ridiculous.”

Linhardt yawns. “I don’t see the big de—”

“Of course you can’t see the big deal,” Caspar groans. “There’s _nothing to see._ How have you lived this long with an empty fridge!?”

“Last I checked,” Linhardt grumbles, finally looking away from his phone to make eye contact with Caspar, “you were my bodyguard, not… I don’t know, someone who cares about the contents of my fridge. And I’ve lived fine, thanks very much.”

Caspar nudges the mini-fridge shut, physically unable to look at its empty insides for any longer without beginning to feel sick. “Your next photo shoot is at eight, isn’t it?”

“Unfortunately.” Linhardt wraps himself up in his blankets until his body is basically indistinguishable under all the layers. Caspar imagines someone taking a look at how he looks right now—hair a mess, dressed in pajamas, dark bags dragging his eyes down—and wonders if they’d be able to accept that he’s the same person they see on billboard advertisements. “Why?”

“Do you want to be late for it again?”

“Oh, desperately. The person in charge there is such a bother to deal with, but they pay so much that even I can’t refuse.” Linhardt squints up at Caspar. “Are you… planning something? To be late? That’s so considerate of you. How long can I nap, then?”

“You’re not napping.” Caspar crosses his arms. “Come on. We’re going to the grocery.”

After much whining, complaining, protesting, and tugging-the-blanket-back-and-forth, Caspar somehow manages to load Linhardt into the car like particularly difficult luggage. Linhardt sulks for most of the ten-minute drive to the nearest grocery store, though he does lighten up when his favorite song comes on the radio, and he’s a little more agreeable once Caspar relents and brings them to the sweets aisles first.

Once the grocery cart has been appropriately loaded with a veritable mountain of chocolates and candies, Caspar can finally get around to buying actual food. “Have you ever gone grocery shopping by yourself, Linhardt?” he asks, trying to decide between two milk brands.

Linhardt shakes his head. “I don’t really… need any of this. Aside from the sweets, of course. If I want to eat, I get takeout or packed meals from the convenience store.”

“That’s unhealthy.”

“I don’t get hungry easily, so it’s not like it’s a problem.”

“But—” Caspar sighs. “Even if you don’t get hungry… oh, never mind.” He’ll just have to help Linhardt somehow like this, even if Caspar himself doesn’t even really know how to cook—Ashe had taught him how to make omelettes once, and that’s one of the few pieces of information he’s retained for a decent period of time. Maybe he’ll ask Ashe to teach him more… but for now, he needs to restock on, well, pretty much everything a person can restock on.

He stares down at the milk cartons in hand. Milk makes coffee a little sweeter, doesn’t it? That reminds him, he used up all the sugar yesterday for some sickeningly sweet coffee that Linhardt had turned his nose up at. Coffee’s just as unhealthy as constant takeouts, but… maybe it’ll at least help keep Linhardt awake for more than a few hours at a time?

Caspar hadn’t been thinking too hard about how much everything would cost, but thankfully he didn’t have to anyway—once they reach the cashier, with one and a half grocery carts fully loaded and heavy enough for Caspar to bench-press, Linhardt just hands over a sleek black credit card without so much as looking at the price. Caspar sees exactly how many digits there are and decides ignorance is most certainly bliss for this situation. “It’s almost eight,” Caspar says after carrying the grocery bags into the car backseat. “Wanna go now?”

Linhardt sighs. He had stared blankly at Caspar throughout the two trips he’d made for the groceries, and now he’s munching away at one of the chocolate bars he’d bought. “Mm… let’s go back to the apartment. I need to change. Also, it’s going to be a longer shoot than usual, since it’s for… a big-name magazine, I think. Or a new fashion line. Which one was it again?” He frowns. “I may not have read the email as much as I should have. But I’ve done this before, so whatever. You should bring a book or something, you’ll get bored just sitting there.”

“Hey, don’t tell me to slack off. I have to watch you!” Also, Caspar doesn’t read. There’s just no appeal in sitting down and staring at letters on pages when he could be doing something more worthwhile.

Linhardt shrugs. “Suit yourself.”

He spends more time than usual in the bathroom, so Caspar supposes he’s either doing this on purpose or trying on every single article of clothing in his wardrobe. Caspar busies himself with sorting the groceries out—Linhardt’s mini-fridge is, in fact, _not_ equipped to handle more than a half-dozen eggs and a few fruits at a time—and just as he’s found time to sit down and breathe a little, the bathroom door clicks open. “Hey, Linhardt,” Caspar says, too tired to look up from the floor, “I’ll fix the mess up in a second, just give me—”

“Caspar. Does this look alright?”

“Uh?”

Caspar looks up, which might have been his biggest mistake for the past twenty-something years of his life, because sitting on the floor as he is, he ends up nearly eye-level with, of all things, Linhardt’s ass.

Okay, so. Caspar’s seen butts before, obviously. His own, his dad’s, his brother’s, and a couple other people he’d rather not mention. (He wasn’t—isn’t—the best in relationships.) But he hadn’t really cared about _butts_ before, until right now, in this moment in time, when the ass he’s staring at is being hugged by a pair of what must be the tightest leather pants in existence. For several long moments, all he can really do is stare, just a tiny bit awestruck, at the sight before him.

For someone _stick-thin,_ it should be absolutely unfair for Linhardt to have a nice ass, Caspar thinks. Does what little he eat bypass every other part of his body to go straight to his butt? That would make an annoying amount of sense.

Then Linhardt turns around, raising an eyebrow down at Caspar. Caspar should not find this as attractive as he does. “Did you hear me?” he asks, but now Caspar’s distracted by the blouse he’s wearing—it’s nondescript, just a plain white with long sleeves, but Linhardt’s left it unbuttoned from the mid-chest up, so now Caspar’s doing his utmost best to remain professional and not salivate over that taunting strip of skin.

Finally, Caspar manages to respond: “Uhhh guh.” Unfortunately, it’s not much of a response.

Linhardt frowns. “Go on.”

“You, you, uhh.” Caspar shakes his head and collects his scattering thoughts. “Yeah, you look great as always. Why ask?”

“Hmm. Alright. Thank you,” Linhardt says, pointedly ignoring Caspar’s last question. Not that he’s obliged to answer him, but at the same time, Caspar wonders if Linhardt had just wanted Caspar to ogle him. It certainly sounds like something Linhardt would pull, even if the serious expression on his face gives nothing away. “I suppose I’ll go with this, then. Shall we leave?”

It’s nearing nine when they arrive at the studio—for a supposedly ‘incredibly rich’ company, according to Linhardt, the venue sure is dark and seedy. Caspar walks ahead of Linhardt but has to climb the stairs down like a crab to keep both their fronts and backs in his sight. “You know you don’t have to,” Linhardt mutters, trying unsuccessfully to push past him. “I’ve been here a few times and nothing’s ever happened. It’s just a bit dark.”

“Why would they get you so late at night, then? You were free the whole day!”

“I was not free. I was sleeping.”

Caspar barely restrains himself from rolling his eyes and settles for a bland look instead. “I… Right. Okay.” He nudges the door at the bottom of the creaky staircase slightly open. “Is this it?”

“ _Yes,_ this is it. Honestly…” Linhardt shakes his head, reaching up to gather his long hair in his hands to tie in a high ponytail. No, Caspar is not staring. “Well? What are you waiting for? Go on, open the door and check for threats for me.”

Testy Linhardt is showing his face again, but Caspar is nothing but patient. He pushes the door open, but it’s just a regular studio, if a bit smaller and darker than what Caspar’s been steadily growing used to; there are a number of photographers milling about, a vanity mirror and desk in one corner, and a flimsy curtain serving as the divider between the studio and what looks like a ridiculously small changing room.

Linhardt slips past him, and Caspar jerks away from him and his stupid leather pants without thinking. “See?” Linhardt murmurs. “No threats. I’ll be fine.” He takes his clothes bag from Caspar’s slack grip and heads off towards the person in charge himself.

Caspar massages his temple, tries to stay calm, and finds himself a nearby stool to sit on.

When Linhardt had said the shoot would last ‘longer than usual,’ Caspar had assumed it was because he’d be changing a lot and there’d be a bunch of specifications by the photographers, whatever. It’s not really Caspar’s problem—he can’t sit still for too long, but it’s not like he minds waiting. Sure, the studio’s a bit too small to pace comfortably in, the flickering fluorescent lights are fraying at his nerves, and the employees keep giving him dirty looks just for _standing,_ but it’s not a problem.

The _real_ problem is _Linhardt._ The leather pants and open blouse were bad enough, but after a few test shots of him sitting on some couch, elbow propped up on the armrest and long legs spread ridiculously far apart, the clothes they make him advertise… actually, Caspar cannot in good conscience call them _clothes._

“What—What—What—” Caspar takes a very deep breath and tries again. The photographers are messing with some settings on their cameras or whatever, giving Linhardt time to lean against a wall and yawn. “What are you _wearing?_ ”

Linhardt blinks at him slowly. “What?”

“T-These don’t look like clothes.”

“Perhaps because it’s underwear,” Linhardt suggests, looking more confused than annoyed. “I didn’t tell you? This is an underwear brand. They’re releasing a new line of clothing and pestered me to front it for them until I gave in.” He tugs the overly-large business jacket tighter around himself, scowling as he shivers. And Caspar can’t blame him for that, because he’s dressed in essentially _nothing_ but a skimpy black leather skirt that barely reaches his mid-thigh and a matching—so equally skimpy—bra. “But I _do_ wish they hadn’t bothered with the air conditioning—”

Caspar practically leaps away from him and sprints towards the remote for the AC, mashing the off button with unnecessary vehemence. “I-It should warm up in a while!” he shouts, turning around just to fix his gaze on a spot on the wall next to Linhardt’s face. Then, to the rest of the employees, “You guys—why didn’t you think he’d be cold!? Is that how you do your job!?”

A nearby photographer snorts. “Whoa. Who are you, his boyfriend?”

“Yeah, I’m his—NO! I’m his bodyguard! What the hell are you saying!?”

“Caspar.” Linhardt runs a hand through his hair, but Caspar doesn’t miss the tiniest hint of pink dusting his cheeks. Is he _embarrassed,_ of all things? _Caspar’s_ the one who should be embarrassed here, damn it! His face feels like it’s been set ablaze ala witch-execution! “It’s fine. Thanks. Go… sit down or something.”

“Sit down,” Caspar mutters. “Yeah, I can… I can do that.” He trudges back to his chair by the side, only to see that some file folders and cans of hairspray have been piled atop the already-tiny stool. Doing his best to ignore the photographer’s snickering behind him, Caspar stalks off to sulk in the corner of the room instead, barely restraining himself from crossing his arms like a little kid. Now he can’t even sit down.

Linhardt stares at him, looking surprised, before—Caspar stares right back in amazement—his eyes crinkle up and he hides a laugh behind his hand.

A laugh. Caspar can’t stop staring. A laugh… he hasn’t so much as seen Linhardt _smile_ in the few weeks he’s worked for him. So far it’s been mostly lots of frowning, scowling, glaring, and sleeping. There’s been the occasional spark of amusement in Linhardt’s eyes, sure, but it was also usually at Caspar’s expense. Just seeing Linhardt’s facial expression change from annoyed to mildly annoyed is a busy day for Caspar already, so this… not even a smile, but a _laugh…_

“Alright, Hevring!” someone shouts, and Caspar blinks just to see Linhardt already back at the couch he had been posing on earlier. “Mm, for this one… no, no, don’t lie down.”

“I don’t like this already,” Linhardt mutters, sitting back up. The business jacket falls off one of his shoulders, and Caspar briefly casts his gaze up to the ceiling and prays for pure, chaste thoughts. “I thought this was just for the lingerie line,” Linhardt says, while the photographers discuss amongst themselves, “but why did I see bondage ropes in the changing room? I’d rather not have a repeat of our past shoot.”

Caspar almost chokes on his saliva. “You saw _what?_ ” he demands, stomping over to stand next to the couch and—judging by a photographer’s affronted yelp—in front of a camera.

“Oh, yes, they sometimes do spreads for pornographic magazines,” Linhardt explains, tone nonchalant, as if he’s expecting Caspar to just stand there and nod in agreement. “But our last shoot together was rather… unpleasant. Don’t you remember?” he asks, voice sweetly sarcastic.

“P… P…” Caspar can’t even get the whole word out. How had Linhardt said it with a straight face?

A small group of photographers, the ones who had mostly been directing Linhardt, pale and start muttering even lower and faster amongst themselves. Finally, the most important-looking one—Caspar has gotten very good at picking out The Most Important-Looking Ones in a group throughout this job—speaks up. “E-Er, Mr. Hevring, sir.”

“Oh, now you’re polite.”

“It’s just, well. Well, you see, that—that issue, well. A-According to the magazine, the sales were, well, phenomenal!” he stammers. “So, er, we were planning—we were _hoping_ you might be able to, ahem. Agree? To another one? Of course! Of course, we will pay you handsomely. And it will just be a few photos. You wouldn’t even have to move much!”

“Obviously,” Linhardt drawls. “I’d be tied up. I _can’t_ move much.”

“L—Linhardt.” Caspar clears his throat. He can only force himself to think of the least sexy things possible before the mental image of You Know What chains his thoughts to—damn it, why did he have to think of chains too!? “You know, you don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.”

Linhardt looks up at him. “What? Of course I know that. It doesn’t really matter to me, but I expect a better work ethic this time around if you’re going to _plan_ on making me model for that again. Why bondage anyway? It’s such a boring, vanilla fetish. At least make it more interesting—”

“Is that a yes, then?” the photographer cuts in, now sounding much less respectful and much more excited. Probably in more ways than one, Caspar thinks darkly. “Do we have your consent, Mr. Hevring?”

Linhardt heaves a long-suffering sigh. “How much?”

They cycle through a few more sets of lingerie—they have him stand in the set he’s currently wearing (Caspar wonders exactly how a leather skirt counts as underwear), then dress him up in something distinctly more lingerie-like with black lace and some creatively-placed straps and have him lie atop the couch in a pose that has Caspar fleeing to the restroom to splash his face with cold water. Next comes a thin pale yellow dress that leaves little to the imagination—they arrange Linhardt’s hair to look artfully disheveled and windswept, which really shouldn’t suit him as much as it does.

Finally, they bring out the bondage ropes, which is what extends the shoot to a ridiculous hour of the morning—Linhardt actually falls asleep while the staff are tying him up, and despite their best efforts, he _remains_ asleep. The apparent benefit to this is that it’s very easy to maneuver his limbs this way and that for a pose, though Caspar doesn’t think he’s ever glared harder at a group of people before, mentally daring them to try something _untoward._ They at least let Linhardt keep his underwear on, but this seems to work in their favor considering said underwear is a pair of black panties that barely even cover anything.

“Are you _sure_ that’s okay?” Caspar says, for what must be the third time by now. “Won’t that cut off blood circulation or something? It looks dangerous!”

“For the _third time,_ ” the photographer next to him says, confirming Caspar’s estimate, “he’ll be fine. We’ve done this enough times to know what’s dangerous and what’s not, alright? So calm down already.”

“But—” Caspar scowls. “What happened last time? In… whatever shoot? He said it was unpleasant.”

The photographer falls silent at that, busying himself with the camera in his hands.

Caspar feels his eye twitch. “Hey. I asked you a question.”

“And? Are you our model?” the photographer snaps back. “I’m not obligated to answer you.”

Something hot and angry flares in Caspar’s chest, and before he knows it he’s grabbed the photographer by the collar of their shirt. They yelp and barely manage to steady their hold on their camera, which is a shame—Caspar is getting the sudden, visceral urge to break something right now. “Tell me what you did,” he snarls. “If you hurt him—”

“Caspar.”

Linhardt’s eyes are half-lidded and heavy, on the edge of closing again, but his voice is as firm as ever. With a huff, Caspar releases the man—he scrambles backwards, looking both furious and fearful. “Linhardt, what—”

“Later.” He’s using that sure, decisive tone again, and Caspar has since learned not to argue with Linhardt when he sounds like that. “Are you done with the ropes yet?” Linhardt asks, tugging lightly at the knots binding his wrists together. “I’d like to get this over with as quickly as possible, thank you.”

The staff murmur half-hearted apologies, stealing glances Caspar’s way, before getting back to work. The knots only need a few more adjustments before they step away, and Caspar hesitantly looks up at their handiwork.

He’s… never quite seen anyone like this, really. Linhardt’s kneeling on the couch, arms raised above his head, wrists bound and tied to a metal bar above him, which Caspar assumes will be cropped out of the actual photos. And, of course, there’s the rope—it encircles his entire body in elaborate, criss-crossing knots and ties, looking tight enough to leave marks on his pale skin. Not to mention he’s, well, almost completely nude—Caspar had been doing his best to keep his eyes on Linhardt’s face and _only_ his face, but it’s hard to ignore the long column of his throat, the curve of his hips, the softness of his thighs, the swell of his calves… the bulge in his underwear…

Caspar shakes his head violently, not even caring that he probably looks like a dog trying to shake fleas off of itself. _No, no, no!_ Remain professional! Why exactly does something so simple have to be so _difficult?_

“Looks good,” the leader from earlier approves. “Alright, Mr. Hevring, just three shots will suffice—after this we’ll have one more set for you to try on, and we’ll be finished! Sounds great, yes?”

“Can you hurry up?” Linhardt yawns.

“O-Oh, er, right. Yes.” The man clears his throat. “Now, can you stand a little on your knees—yes, like that. Face the side… a bit more to the left—there. Alright. For your expression, can you look aroused?”

Once again, Caspar tries to tone down the raging wave of what-the-fuck in his chest. Linhardt, for his part, doesn’t even look surprised—instead he looks thoughtful, before he very carefully closes his eyes, dark green lashes nearly brushing his cheeks, and lets his mouth fall open as if in pleasure.

Caspar stares fixedly at a spot on the wall and tries to think of the least sexy things possible once more.

That endeavor gets several times more difficult when the photographers discuss amongst themselves again, before one of them speaks up to ask, “Mr. Hevring, do you mind if we pull your underwear down a little? Not enough to show anything, just to—”

“Just do it,” comes the bored response.

“H-H-Hey, hey, hey, where—where are you touching!” Caspar shouts, which would have sounded much more threatening if he hadn’t stumbled over his words several times in quick succession. The photographer who had reached out to brush her fingers against the waistband of Linhardt’s underwear blinks, looking back at him in confusion. “Is this really alright!? Isn’t this… I don’t know… immoral…”

“If you’re so bothered, then you do it,” the photographer replies. She doesn’t even sound accusatory—she sounds like she’s just come up with a novel idea. “You’re his… wait, was it boyfriend or bodyguard…?”

“Bodyguard!”

“Bodyguard. It shouldn’t be a problem if you do it, then, right?”

Caspar’s eye twitches again. “U-Uh.” He has absolutely no desire to go ten feet within Linhardt’s underwear, but now everyone gathered is staring expectantly at him, like he handles stuff like this all the time no problem. Thinking about it, maybe this is part of the job too? Linhardt’s a model, after all, and judging by his attitude, he’s probably done shoots like this all the time before. So… even if Caspar does, you know, _this,_ it probably wouldn’t even be a big deal for him. Probably. _Probably._

“O-Okay, yeah, sure.” Caspar clears his throat. “Linhardt, would you be okay with tha—”

“I don’t care who does it as long as _someone_ does,” Linhardt sighs, but there’s a furrow in his brow that wasn’t there before. Caspar tries not to fixate on it too much, and yet… does that mean he’d rather have the photographer, a stranger he’ll most likely never meet again, do it? Caspar doesn’t want to make him any more uncomfortable than he must already be, but he’s already taking tentative steps forward—besides, the faster he gets this over with, the sooner Linhardt can get out of these ropes and into some proper clothes again.

Caspar tries to swallow, but his mouth is so dry it’s almost painful. “Uh, Linhardt, I…” Standing right in front of him, where every little detail is emphasized—how his nipples have grown stiff in the cold, for one thing—only makes talking that much harder. “I’ll make this quick, okay?”

Linhardt cracks his eyes open, but he doesn’t look at Caspar. “Please,” he mutters. “If it’s you…”

Whatever else he says is too soft to hear over the chatter in the studio. “What was that?”

“No, never mind.” He closes his eyes again and yawns, but this one looks a little more forced than his usual yawns are. Caspar would know—Linhardt yawns at least twenty times a day. “Just do it already.”

The ropes get in the way, but eventually Caspar manages to tug the panties down to around the top of Linhardt’s thighs, as guided by the photographers shouting directions at him. The next shot after that is fairly similar, although Linhardt bends his elbows a little and he faces the camera a bit more, but the real difference is in the third photo; for one thing, they take the underwear off entirely, which is just great. Really.

At this point, Caspar is sorely tempted to wait the rest of the shoot out in the restroom, but it’s nearly one in the morning by now and he’s sure they’re almost done. He can last a little longer, can’t he? This is just part of the job. Yeah. If he thinks about it that way, it doesn’t sound so bad.

This time, Linhardt has to sit atop the couch, his legs drawn up slightly until his knee is level with his chest, and his arms are bound behind his back instead of raised above him. The most important part is his face, though: instead of facing away from the camera, he’s staring right at it, hair even messier than earlier, and expression looking… Caspar can’t even think of a word to accurately describe it. It’s like he’s staring up at someone in defiance… possibly to make it look like he’s staring at the magazine readers. The thought makes Caspar sick.

A few more camera flashes later, they usher Linhardt back into the changing room, which Caspar can’t be more glad for—it had been getting increasingly challenging to keep himself from staring at the curve of Linhardt’s bare ass. Unfortunately, he steps out of the changing room wearing what looks like a black party dress with some kind of small feather boa, paired with black tights that only further compliment his already-long legs.

Caspar should probably be glad they didn’t slap some heels on him, too, else he truly may have passed out right then and there.

“What do you think? Nice, isn’t it?” the lead photographer says, clapping his hands together. Now he actually looks invested. “That one’s got a bit of a defect, so as thanks for all your hard work today, you can keep it after one last shot for it. It suits you wonderfully, after all! Alright, now if you could just sit down here, Mr. Hevring…”

“I can keep it?” Linhardt settles back on the couch, picking a stray feather out of his hair. “I suppose it does look… alright. Not very comfortable, though…”

To Caspar’s relief, the photo they need for that one is relatively quick, and they can leave almost right away—Linhardt, predictably enough, doesn’t even want to look at the photos they took, apparently too sleepy to care. “Let’s go, Caspar,” he sighs, stretching his arms over his head. The rope marks are still there, faint but visible, and it takes everything in Caspar not to trace the lines with his gaze. “Urgh, wasn’t the parking lot a ways away from here? I don’t want to walk at night in this thing, but I can’t be bothered to change…”

“Wait, you’re not changing?” Caspar yelps, scrambling to follow Linhardt out of the studio after gathering the rest of his belongings in his arms. “That dress barely even covers anything! And, yeah, it’s a bit of a walk—you’re going to freeze out there!”

Linhardt groans. “Whatever. The sooner we get out of here, the sooner I can be nice and warm under the covers, alright?”

“But—” Caspar huffs. He drops the clothes bag and the rest of the stuff they’d brought on the floor, before shucking his suit jacket off and practically throwing it onto Linhardt’s bare shoulders—Linhardt himself looks too stunned to resist. “There,” Caspar says, picking the bag back up. “It’s not much, but at least your arms won’t, like, get frostbite or something. Let’s go?”

Linhardt looks down at the jacket, before managing a nod and slipping his arms through the sleeves. They only reach just above his wrists, but it’ll have to do. “Y… Yes,” he says, sounding strangely… odd. “Let’s go.”

Thankfully, the streets are fairly empty, so at least no one stares too long at Linhardt’s legs for Caspar’s liking. “Mm… that took forever,” Linhardt grumbles, pulling the jacket tighter around himself like he’d done earlier. “Still, it’s a lot of money. It’s not like I’m poor, but that’s a fortune I can’t pass up.”

“They’re total perverts,” Caspar mutters. He has to admit they weren’t as bad as the employees from the shampoo-commercial company—those idiots would _not_ stop taking cell phone pictures of Linhardt, while these guys looked like they just wanted to do their job. “I don’t know how you can stand people like them, Linhardt. Isn’t it hard?”

Before Linhardt can respond, a man passing by them and walking the opposite direction skids to a stop, nearly slipping on the pavement. “Linhardt?”

“Yes?” Linhardt replies, the response sounding near-automatic, before his eyes widen in what looks like recognition. He turns around, makes eye contact with the stranger behind them, and takes an instinctive step backwards to stick closer to Caspar. “Oh, hello,” he greets—his voice gives nothing away, but Caspar doesn’t miss how his grip on his jacket tightens ever so slightly. “Fancy meeting you here.”

“Yeah, no way!” the stranger cheerily returns, moving closer as well. “It’s been, what, four years? Five? I kept seeing you around, but I never got to stop and talk! Probably because you were on magazines and all, hah!”

“Ha… ha,” Linhardt forces out. The laugh is so fake, Caspar has to keep himself from cringing. “What brings you here?”

The man shrugs. “Just had a late meeting at the agency. Man, speaking of, Linhardt, how are the Black Eagles treating you? It can’t be better than how it was at Seiros. Won’t you consider coming back to us? Everyone seriously misses you there.”

Linhardt shakes his head. “I like my agency,” he says, voice taking on that familiar, firm tone again. “Edelgard treats me very well, and the deals are good. As you can see,” he adds, tilting his head in Caspar’s direction, “I’m even important enough to need a big, strong bodyguard now. Did you know he’s quite good at fighting? I’m rather impressed.”

Caspar has no idea why this conversation has taken this sort of turn, but he’s not about to ignore an obvious cue. “Hey there,” he greets, waving politely. “I’m his bodyguard.”

“O-Ohh, a bodyguard, huh?” The man laughs, and… is it just Caspar, or does he detect a hint of nervousness? “Well, it’s late, so I’ll be off. But seriously, think about it! Seiros hasn’t been the same without you. If you ever feel like coming back—no, even just taking a look around the main building—you know where to go, right?”

Linhardt smiles a smile that looks more threatening than a smile should have any right to be. “Goodbye,” he says, pointedly.

He doesn’t speak again until they get into the car, and Caspar doesn’t press him about it, though he does catch Linhardt letting out a shaky sigh of relief as soon as Caspar locks the car doors. “That guy,” Caspar starts, uncertainly, “was he, like, an old coworker or something?”

“Exactly that.” Linhardt twists the rings around his fingers again, not looking at Caspar. “I used to work at Seiros—a different modeling agency—before I moved to the Black Eagles. Seiros employees are awfully persistent, though. They’ve tried to get me to sign with them again multiple times over the years, but, well, I don’t like them.” He shrugs, looking a little more at ease when he reaches over to turn on the radio. “Edelgard—you know her, right? The president of the Black Eagles agency? She’s a taskmaster, but her work ethic is admirable.”

Caspar hums in acknowledgement. At this time of night, there are barely any cars on the road too, which is great. He wants nothing more than to lie down on Linhardt’s floor and conk out for the next several hours, then wake up with zero memory of tonight’s shoot. “You sure are in high demand.”

“Unfortunately.” Linhardt leans against the window. “Do you still want to know what happened in the last pornography shoot I had with this company?”

Caspar takes a deep breath and lets it out, trying to calm himself down in advance. “Only if you want to tell me.”

“It’s not a big deal. They were just…” Linhardt draws his knees up to his chest. “I should have known it would come with the job. But back then, I wasn’t so used to being… stared at so much.” A long pause. “Objectified,” he amends. “That’s the word. I was alone, too, and… I don’t know. In the end, I got fed up and snapped at them, but it’s not like that changed anything. I finished the shoot and my photos got published. You can probably find them on the Internet somewhere.”

“O-Oh.” Caspar frowns. He’s about to apologize before remembering Linhardt hates hearing that, and hastily goes with, “That sucks,” instead. It’s not much better, but he’s not the best at conversations.

Linhardt shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter now. I’ve learned. And it really is much easier to deal with people like them when they’re scared of you.” He huffs in what Caspar hopes is amusement. “Honestly, it’s strange. They’re closely affiliated with Seiros—they get quite a number of models from there. They even tried to convince me to return to that agency despite me telling them to shut up and work. Also, they had absolutely no idea how to tie the ropes then, so it was quite a nightmare.”

Caspar’s just glad they hadn’t done anything worse to Linhardt other than screw up the rope-tying, at the very least. “Why don’t you make this the last time you have to work with them? I don’t want you to—I mean, you shouldn’t have to feel uncomfortable if you don’t have to.”

Linhardt gives him a genuinely bewildered look. “You… care?”

“Uh, duh?”

“My previous bodyguards…” Linhardt stops at that, as if remembering he’d already said these exact words to Caspar before. “Well, I suppose you’re not like any of them, are you? It’s not like they lent me their suit jacket before either.”

Caspar grins. “Now you get it! See, Linhardt? I know you don’t really, like, trust me yet or anything, and I’m not telling you to. But just know you can count on me for anything! I’m not just protecting you because it’s my job. I’m doing this because I _want_ to!”

He hadn’t realized it before, but even when Linhardt is eccentric, testy, tetchy, lethargic, and several other qualities Caspar’s never really encountered before in other people, he’s also sort of endearing, like how a pet cat is loved despite it constantly trailing mud everywhere. And besides, it’s not like Caspar can deny how much he likes spending time with Linhardt now, even if they had started off a little rocky. He _wants_ to get up early and make him coffee, and he _wants_ to drive Linhardt around through thick and thin traffic.

Being his bodyguard is Caspar’s job, yeah. But being his friend… Caspar can do that too, can’t he? It’s still professional, sort of, and it honestly helps with his job if his client likes him.

“Because you want to…” Linhardt stares at him. His eyes are all lit up by the city lights. “That sounds nice,” he mumbles, almost too quiet for Caspar to hear. “Maybe you’re right after all.”

“Right about what?”

Linhardt turns away from him again, drawing the jacket ever tighter around his arms. “That you’re not like the rest,” he murmurs. “That you won’t leave.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [linny in leather pants](https://twitter.com/DrawingDDoom/status/1285961071946199041) by alt :-) as for the rest of the clothes/pose references, here they are in order of appearance:
> 
>   * [leather lingerie](http://superbe.co/image/73A436CA-FBBE-294E-F93C-7CE4DC9A841E/)
>   * [black lace](https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/androgynous-model-poses-lingerie-photo-6975603.amp)
>   * [yellow dress](https://www.tumbex.com/androfeminine.tumblr/post/167018063134/stav-strashko-teenvogue-this-video-proves) (first image)
>   * [bondage (NSFW)](https://www.wtfuck.net/klaudia-brahja-nicolas-guerin/) (first, third, & second to last images)
>   * [party dress](https://ww.fashionnetwork.com/news/Reformation-taps-transgender-model-andreja-pejic-for-holiday-campaign,749104.html) (it totally looks like the gremory outfit but modern-ish, right?)
> 



	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If Caspar _does_ think of Linhardt… it’d just be out of, like, you know. Physical attraction. It wouldn’t mean anything, and it wouldn’t hurt either. Right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> note for explicit sexual content for like, the first 1,000 words. sorry for horny crimes 😔  
> this chapter is a bit longer than the past three have been, so please enjoy!!

_“Ah…”_

_The ropes are digging into his wrists, but the material doesn’t chafe—no, he’d never hurt him—just tight enough to leave marks later, marks he wants to run his fingers down to watch him shiver at—_

_His skin is so pale, so smooth, so easy to mar. No, no, Caspar needs to be careful, gentle, but it’s hard to hold himself back when that long, lovely neck is bared for him to nip at, when the sounds falling from those plush pink and bitten-warm lips are soft and sweet and so terribly addicting. There’s so much about him to explore, long hair splayed out on the pillow, long limbs reaching for Caspar, pulling him closer, whispering words he can’t make out._

_Caspar grips onto his wrist, so thin it’s worrying, rubs circles on the back of his palm, presses his thumb against his pulse point. His heartbeat is so loud, so fast, and Caspar hopes that doesn’t mean he’s scared. “Linhardt,” he murmurs, trying to be reassuring—_

Wait. _Linhardt?_

“ _Gah—_ ” Caspar shoots up from the sheets so fast that he nearly bashes his skull in against the edge of the bed next to him. For such an early hour of the morning, the blankets are stifling hot, and he kicks them off before he can sweat any further, absently rubbing his aching head.

What the hell was that? He hadn’t just dreamed of… you know… did he? He definitely did, right? He usually forgets specific details of dreams as soon as he wakes up, and he only needs a minute or two to forget he had dreamed at all, but the memory of this one sticks to him like the sweat beginning to dry on his skin.

Probably because, unlike giant monsters and other weird things he tends to dream about, Caspar’s actually _seen_ some of the things in this one. Obviously, Operation “Forget All About That Shoot ASAP” has failed.

“Caspar…?” Linhardt pushes himself to sit up on the bed, blinking blearily down at Caspar. Just looking at the thick wool blanket he’s wrapped himself up in is making Caspar sweat more—how can he stand the heat under that? “Was that you? I thought I heard a shout…”

“I-It was nothing. Weird dream.” Caspar sighs, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. Upon further squinting at the clock, it looks like it isn’t such an early hour of the morning after all—in fact, it’s nearly noon. Great, now Linhardt’s messed up his sleep schedule too. “Is there anywhere you need to go today?” Linhardt usually tells him beforehand, but they’d both been so tired last night—or a while ago, as it may be—that they’d crashed as soon as they came home.

Linhardt doesn’t respond right away, and Caspar glances at him to check if he’s fallen asleep again—it wouldn’t exactly be surprising—only to instantly regret it. Linhardt hadn’t bothered to change into pajamas last night, and he’d only had enough energy to pull the dress off of him before curling up in bed and still wearing Caspar’s jacket—the dress didn’t have sleeves, which had made it easy to rip off while keeping the jacket on.

“What?” Linhardt mutters, covering his yawn with a hand. He’s extracted himself from the wool blanket, but Caspar dearly wishes he hadn’t, because now he has to see Linhardt wearing virtually nothing else but his too-short suit jacket, the sheets pooled around his legs.

The dream had been bad enough. But the sight before him isn’t just rubbing salt in the wound—it’s like pouring an entire bottle of alcohol on it. Caspar’s starting to feel lightheaded at the same time Linhardt’s frown of confusion deepens and his gaze slides… downwards…

It’s only when those ocean-blue eyes widen in surprise that Caspar realizes what he must be looking at.

“Bathroom!” Caspar shouts, leaping off the mess of blankets on the floor. Much to his consternation, Linhardt’s wide-eyed gaze _follows_ his movements. “I-I-I’ll go use it first! Y-You should sleep in a little more, I-I bet you’re tired—” He’s running out of things to say by now, and so he ducks into the bathroom, for the first time extremely glad that Linhardt’s apartment is small enough that he can cross the distance between the bed to the restroom in two large strides.

He slams the door behind him hard enough that he probably wakes up the next-door neighbor, then slumps against it with a heavy sigh. “Why, why, why, _why,_ ” Caspar grumbles to himself, staring down at his shorts, where his traitorous erection is very clearly visible. He’s all too familiar with morning wood, but did it have to happen now? _Here?_ With _Linhardt?_

Not like it’s entirely Caspar’s fault. In fact, it’s entirely _Linhardt’s,_ Caspar thinks to himself, disgruntled. Linhardt just _had_ to wear his jacket to bed and absolutely nothing else. Caspar wouldn’t be surprised if he doesn’t give it back, but honestly, Caspar doesn’t even want it—if he had to wear that thing while it smelled of Linhardt, he might just completely lose it and accidentally shoot himself with his own gun.

But… Caspar looks back down at himself. Considering the apartment is too small for privacy, it’s been a long while since Caspar’s… relieved himself. Surely it wouldn’t hurt, right? It would just be for a few minutes. Linhardt’s probably gone back to sleep by now. And even if Caspar _does_ think of Linhardt… it’d just be out of, like, you know. Physical attraction. It wouldn’t mean anything, and it wouldn’t hurt either. Right?

Screw it. Caspar double-checks and triple-checks to make sure the bathroom door is locked, then tugs his shorts down and takes himself in hand. He can’t quite hold back the low groan that slips past his gritted teeth—it’s been a _long_ while, and even just this is enough to warm up the rest of his body.

Linhardt’s hand is smaller, but his fingers are long and slender, like the rest of his body. Caspar swallows, closes his eyes—that hand would feel nice on his cock, whether stroking slowly or pumping fast, thumb rubbing at the head or palm cupping his balls. Maybe—Maybe even if it weren’t Linhardt’s hand but his mouth instead, pink tongue licking stripes down his length or pretty lips wrapped around his dick, those half-lidded, deep blue eyes staring up at him and hazy with lust…

“Fuck,” Caspar groans, tightening his grip and leaning against the door when he feels his own pre-cum dripping down his fingers. He’s never been able to stay quiet when doing… _this,_ which had made living with his family a bit of a nightmare. Still, it should be alright to make a little noise here, right? Linhardt sleeps right through just about anything. Caspar twists his wrist, just barely muffling a moan in the back of his palm.

Maybe if it weren’t Linhardt’s hand or mouth, but instead… instead… if he were lying on his back, arms wrapped around Caspar’s neck, moaning his name—or, _God,_ if he were on his hands and knees on the bed, back arched and ass up, begging Caspar to move faster, fuck him harder—

Pleasure crests, cascades. Caspar curses, throwing his head back against the door behind him as he comes in his hand, imagining how it might feel coming inside Linhardt instead, how tight that perfect ass of his would be, how Caspar’s cum would look dripping down his soft thighs…

He shivers, stroking himself through his orgasm until his thoughts steady themselves in his head. He hasn’t come this hard in a while, even before he’d taken on this job and lost pretty much every semblance of privacy, but he doesn’t want to think about why for too long—he already knows the answer is just going to give him a headache.

Caspar brushes his teeth and washes his face as fast as he can, then creeps back out into the room once he’s done. Linhardt’s buried under the blankets again, and Caspar nearly thinks he really has fallen back asleep when the blanketed lump suddenly jolts in surprise at Caspar closing the bathroom door. “Linhardt?” Caspar carefully calls. “Uh, are you awake?”

The blanket shuffles around, and a sliver of Linhardt’s face peeks out from the edge. “C-Caspar?” he mumbles, and Caspar has to grab onto the edge of the kitchenette counter for support—exactly _why_ does Linhardt have to sound so wonderfully breathless two seconds after waking up? And, now that Caspar gets a better look at him, why is what little he can see of Linhardt’s face flushed? Could he possibly have…

…No, no way. The apartment walls may be thin, but surely Linhardt couldn’t have heard him. Right?

“I’m—I’m awake.” Linhardt sits up, blankets tangled in his legs. He’s taken off Caspar’s jacket now, though it looks like he’d been holding it to his bare chest, something Caspar decides against looking too deeply into. “I was just—ugh. Ow.”

Caspar nearly trips over himself trying to get to Linhardt’s side. “What happened? Are you hurt—”

“Wait—wait, stop! Stay right there! Don’t come any closer!” Linhardt yelps, yanking the blankets back up to his shoulders. Caspar obediently skids to a stop several steps away from the bedside, but the initial panic in Linhardt’s expression falls away to be replaced by the pain from earlier. “It’s nothing. I just… sat up too fast… you know, when you get all dizzy…”

Caspar scowls. “I know that! It’s something with iron deficiency, isn’t it?” Ashe used to have that problem too until all his friends bullied him into finally taking medication for it. “Jeez. I bet it’s because you don’t eat enough… or eat all the wrong stuff, anyway.”

Linhardt stares at him. “I… think it’s because I don’t have enough iron. You know, as the term ‘iron deficiency’ implies.”

“Doesn’t change the fact you don’t eat enough.” Caspar heads over to the mini-fridge and throws it open. “Today, I’m gonna make you breakfast. When was the last time you had breakfast? Probably never, right? No problem. Just sit tight, take another nap or something, or go wash up in the bathroom. I’ll be done before you know it.”

Linhardt doesn’t follow any of Caspar’s suggestions, as he simply gives Caspar a blank look before ducking back under his blanket, for whatever reason. Caspar doesn’t worry too much about it—Linhardt’s barely coherent less than an hour after being awake anyway, and since he doesn’t seem to have anything planned for today, it’d be nice to just let him lay there and relax after the absolute pain last night was. Caspar grabs some eggs and butter, already feeling happier just looking at the fridge in a much better, fuller state than it had been less than 24 hours ago.

He pours his concentration in cooking, because messing up his first time in the kitchen sounds like a surefire way of losing his job, but in such a small apartment it’s only natural that Caspar would get distracted sooner or later. After a few minutes of Linhardt shuffling under the blankets, he finally falls still for a long moment, then slowly peers out from beneath it once again. “What are you making?”

“You’ll see,” Caspar replies, though the smell of eggs should make it obvious by now. Then again, it’s entirely possible Linhardt’s never had an omelette before.

Linhardt squints at him, eyes tracking Caspar’s every move. It isn’t a problem until his staring goes on for long enough that when Caspar turns around to get the butter off the counter, he makes terribly uncomfortable eye contact with Linhardt. “Uh, yeah?” Caspar says, trying to hide the nervousness in his voice with a laugh.

“Oh, it’s nothing.” Linhardt yawns, sprawling out on the bed to stretch languidly. He still isn’t wearing anything, and now he’s even folded Caspar’s jacket up to use as a pillow despite having an _actual,_ perfectly usable pillow with him on the same bed. “Don’t mind me. Keep going.”

Caspar tries not to sound as confused as he feels when he says, “Right.” He turns back to the frying pan, but he can still feel Linhardt’s gaze on him, burning holes in his back. Caspar isn’t even wearing anything aside from his shorts—he’d gotten used to dressing casually (or not at all, in this case) when living alone, and Linhardt’s reassured him that he doesn’t mind if Caspar does the same here. Although thinking about it, Caspar should probably get an apron or something if he’s going to be handling oil on a frying pan, but he highly doubts Linhardt, takeout extraordinaire, has a spare apron just lying around. He’s surprised the guy has kitchen appliances at all.

Linhardt slips into the bathroom after a while, and steps out just as Caspar finishes setting the omelette on a plate. “Done!” He places it atop the counter. “Go on and try it, Linhardt! If you don’t like it, we can always get different breakfast foods. Like bacon or pancakes or whatever you want.”

“Mm…” Linhardt settles atop a stool and pokes at the food with his fork while Caspar busies himself with the coffee machine. “I’m… not terribly fond of eggs.”

Caspar frowns. “That’s too bad. There are eggs in, like, everything. What do you like, then?”

“I don’t know. Water.”

“This is why you should eat more,” Caspar sighs. He grabs the milk and sugar from the fridge, pours a liberal amount of both into the cat mug, and mixes the coffee in it until it looks light enough to pass as chocolate milk. “Okay, this is take two… three? Of coffee. It _should_ be sweet enough now.”

Linhardt looks unconvinced, but he takes the mug from Caspar’s hands anyway. One sip and his face screws up once more. “Bitter.”

“No way.”

“It’s still too bitter. I know what I drank.” Linhardt nudges the mug away from him. “A little sweeter than last time, sure, but… still blech. I’d rather have chocolate for breakfast.” He shifts on his seat, casting a glance towards the fridge as if ready to do just that, before apparently considering it too much trouble and taking a bite of the omelette instead.

Caspar watches with bated breath. “How is it?” he asks. If he can’t win with coffee, then surely he can get some points with the omelette.

“Could be sweeter,” Linhardt says, but he digs in with unexpected gusto and cleans off the plate in a matter of minutes, which is the fastest Caspar’s seen him accomplish anything. “Thank you for the meal,” he mumbles, looking sleepy again already. “You’re right, by the way. I haven’t had breakfast in a long while.”

“I knew it.” Caspar shakes his head, staring forlornly down at the coffee. What does he have to do to make this thing sweeter than it already is? Maybe coffee just isn’t right for Linhardt. Still, there has to be _some_ way to get him to like it, and Caspar never backs down from a fight… though this isn’t much of a fight, but the point stands. “So, anywhere to go for today?” He’s already expecting a no, based on how relaxed Linhardt’s been all morning, and Caspar can’t wait to laze around a bit for the first time in a few weeks, maybe get some exercise in…

Linhardt yawns. “Do you remember that fashion designer we visited the other day?”

“Uh.” Caspar is getting a bad feeling about this. “The one who lives three hours away from here?”

“Yeah. We have to be there in, oh…” Linhardt checks his phone. “Thirty minutes?”

As it turns out, the dressmaker—Bernadetta—works with the Black Eagles agency often, and she’s presenting her designs in a fashion show next week, featuring Linhardt and other models affiliated with the Eagles. “Last time was us agreeing on which designs I’d wear, and today’s a rehearsal,” Linhardt explains, skipping every song that comes up on his USB until reaching one that Caspar vaguely remembers hearing on the radio before. “There’ll be a full dress rehearsal the day before the show itself. Hmph… if I weren’t fond of her, I would be complaining an awful lot.”

“You’re… fond of her?” Caspar slowly repeats. The only other person he’s heard Linhardt speak that way about is Ashe.

Linhardt shrugs. “It takes a while for her to warm up to people, but once you’re friends with her, she’s not a bad person. Certainly much easier to work with than pretty much every other independent fashion designer I know.” He rolls his eyes hard enough, Caspar gets a headache for him. “Don’t worry about being late. She won’t mind. Probably.”

That doesn’t reassure Caspar in the slightest, but he nods like it does anyway. Linhardt reclines against the backrest and hums along to the radio.

They get there two hours late, which Caspar can only tell himself isn’t as bad as being three hours late. Like last time, Bernadetta Varley shies away at the sight of him, but Linhardt eventually convinces her to let him in the small, sparsely-furnished office—there’s a couch with a few dresses thrown over it, and a desk that probably serves as a counter as well, but Caspar can’t make much else out through the mess of clothing racks and hangers strewn around the place.

“I-It’s such a mess in here, I’m so sorry,” Bernadetta squeaks, darting from dress to outfit and hastily folding them up. “Only Linhardt and Dorothea ever come in here anyway—oh, no! E-Edelgard said she’d be visiting today too, oh no, oh no, I _have_ to clean up before then—”

Linhardt flops onto the couch. “I’m sure she won’t mind,” he says, already yawning. “So what do I have to do for this rehearsal? Did you think of something new?”

Just like that, Bernadetta lights up. “Yes! I found something in the backroom that I abandoned a long time ago because it just looked _awful_ —”

“What, and you’re making me wear it?”

“—but I fixed it up a little and now it looks okay! Can you try it on for me while we wait for the others?” Bernadetta’s already grabbing something off one of the half-dozen clothing racks—it looks fairly simple, a black dress that looks nondescript compared to the stuff Caspar’s already seen. “I have more too! I think you’d look nice with a blanket. I mean, not really a _blanket,_ but, you know. Hold on!” And she zips into the backroom.

Linhardt sighs, already slipping off his clothes—just a sweatshirt and pants easy enough to discard that it takes less than a minute for him to get undressed. Caspar politely looks away, which is hilarious considering what had just happened this morning. “Won’t you look?” Linhardt whines, after Caspar listens to rustling fabric for a few seconds. “Bern always gives me long detailed information when I ask how it is, but sometimes I just want to hear it from an actual audience member.”

Caspar mentally bashes his skull against a mirror. Does he _have_ to look? The whole reason he’d had that dream from earlier and had woken up all hot and bothered was because he couldn’t mind his own business and keep his eyes to himself last night.

Maybe if Caspar just spouts off some random compliment, Linhardt will get bored and ask Bernadetta for her opinion instead, and Caspar can keep himself from thinking impure thoughts. Alright, that sounds like a plan. He turns around, fixes his gaze on a spot beneath Linhardt’s left eye, and nods. “You look great.”

“That would be nice if you didn’t sound like a robot,” Linhardt points out, not missing a beat. Caspar tries not to scowl. “What? Does it look that bad? You can say so.”

“N-No, nothing like that, Linhardt!” Caspar hurries to say, mostly out of instinct. And, well, it’s true—the dress isn’t as revealing as the lingerie Linhardt had worn last night, or any of the other more revealing outfits he’s had to model recently. It’s a halter dress, with some see-through fabric folds that reveal Linhardt’s long legs, but nothing too scandalous. Caspar lets out a sigh of relief. “Yeah, it _does_ look great. Seriously.”

Linhardt narrows his eyes. “Hmph.”

“Hmph?”

“You could have sounded that sincere the first time around.”

“Aw, come on.” Caspar tries for a sheepish grin, glad when that seems to mollify Linhardt and his put-out expression somewhat. “You’re a model, Linhardt, of course you’re gonna look good in anything. Asking for my opinion’s kinda pointless.”

“Still.” Linhardt turns his gaze towards the backroom. Caspar’s fairly sure that just means he’s waiting for Bernadetta to come out, but he can’t help but wonder if Linhardt might also be avoiding eye contact. “I want to hear it anyway, you know.”

“…What do you—”

“Okay! Here, Linhardt!” Bernadetta sings, skipping out of the backroom with an actual, gigantic blanket. An actual, gigantic, _tasseled_ blanket, its strings the sorts you see on jackets and hoodies. “As promised, a blanket!”

Linhardt gives Caspar a glance, then looks away too quickly for Caspar to discern the meaning of it. “This is a cape, isn’t it? It’s cute. What were you thinking of pairing it with? Certainly not with this dress.”

“No, no! I was thinking…”

A few other people start filtering in throughout the next couple of hours—another model named Dorothea, also from the Black Eagles agency, and Edelgard herself, accompanied by her right-hand man Hubert, who mostly stands in the shadows next to Caspar while the three of them speak and helps him in gathering up discarded clothes, costumes, and outfits Bernadetta throws off. It feels like it takes ages before the ‘rehearsal,’ which was really just a very tiny meeting, concludes and they’re back outside, sometime in the middle of the afternoon.

“That wasn’t so bad,” Linhardt remarks, which is Linhardt-speak for “That was amazing.” Caspar can’t blame him—if he had to deal with perverts and people who only like him because his nude shots make porn magazines sell out, he’d be glad to talk to actual friends too. “I don’t have anywhere else to be, so let’s get back home quick. I want a nap…”

“You always do,” Caspar points out. “Sorry the walk’s so long. This place is really, uh… out of the way.”

“Oh, I know. Edelgard offered Bern her own office in the Eagles building, but being in crowds overwhelms her, so I can’t imagine she’d like to be in the middle of a bustling city. Just five people in her tiny office together was a busy day.” Linhardt stretches his arms over his head. It’s rare Caspar sees him dressed so casually, and he has to admit it’s not a bad look on the guy. “When we get home—”

He suddenly falls silent, gaze fixed on something in the distance. Caspar immediately turns to follow his eyes—and relaxes when it isn’t anything suspicious. “What, you wanna play?”

“I _need_ that,” Linhardt declares.

“O… kay?” Caspar’s never seen him look this determined before. The most emotion he’s ever gotten out of Linhardt was when he spat out the unsweetened coffee that one time, which Caspar’s done his best to try and forget about. “Okay, cool, let’s go get it.”

They cross the street over to the claw machine beside a video game store—a quick glance tells Caspar there are nine different sorts of plushes in the machine. Linhardt’s already fishing out his wallet and pushing a couple of coins into the slot, perfectly silent the whole while. “Uh, right,” Caspar mumbles, stepping to the side. “I won’t distract you or whatever.” He’s never pegged Linhardt to be the plushie type… but then again, with how much time Linhardt spends in bed, it sort of does make sense.

Caspar was expecting to stand there and wait a few minutes while Linhardt maneuvers the claw around. He just wasn’t expecting Linhardt to try and fail seven, going on eight, times.

“This is rigged,” Linhardt eventually declares, irritation bleeding through his voice. “There’s no way—I’ve never played one of these before, but it shouldn’t be _this_ impossible! What’s the matter with this thing?”

Caspar clears his throat. “It’s supposed to be impossible, I think.”

Linhardt whirls on him. “You try.”

“What, me?” Caspar laughs. “Gonna warn you now, Linhardt, you might be blown out of here by how good I am. I used to compete with my classmates all the ti—”

Linhardt grabs him by the wrist and _drags_ him to the front of the claw machine. He’s not particularly strong—in fact, Caspar’s pretty sure he doesn’t have a single developed muscle in his body—but he has a _tight_ vicegrip that Caspar winces at, especially when Linhardt’s nails dig into his skin. “Now,” Linhardt orders, using his rare authoritative tone.

Caspar expertly hides his nervous swallow. Why did that voice send a shiver—and not a bad shiver—down his spine just now? “R-Right,” he stammers. “Sorry, uh… do you still have coins?”

The plush is easy enough to get—Caspar hasn’t suffered over a claw machine in a while, but his old reflexes kick in and soon enough Linhardt’s hugging the yellow duck plush close to his chest. There’s a huge grin on his face, and it looks almost out of place considering Caspar’s never seen him this happy before. “Thank you,” Linhardt sighs happily, nuzzling his nose against the duck’s head. Caspar has to look away before he dies of the sweetness. “I didn’t really go out much when I was younger… so I have no idea how to play those games.”

“A… Ahaha. It’s nothing.” Caspar rubs the back of his neck. Why is he even embarrassed? He should be proud, right? And he _is_ proud, so why does it feel like all he wants is to jump into the nearest ocean and lie at the bottom of the sea floor forever? “Man, you must’ve really wanted it. I’ve never seen you smile like that before.”

“Really?” Linhardt frowns. “I guess it’s not surprising. Unless it’s for a shoot, you don’t smile much at all in this line of work.”

“That’s fu—I mean, that’s messed up.” Caspar crosses his arms in turn. “You should smile more,” he says, as confidently as possible, keeping his voice from shaking through sheer willpower. “You look even prettier than usual.”

Linhardt stares at him, expression perfectly blank. “Oh, really,” he says, at length, and follows that up with absolutely nothing.

Is this a battle between Caspar’s willpower and Linhardt’s ability to seemingly keep his face neutral under all odds? If so, Caspar’s not about to lose. “You don’t have anywhere else to be for today, right? Why don’t we go somewhere you want?” he suggests.

“Somewhere I want?” Linhardt’s frown deepens. “I… I don’t know. I never really thought about that. Um…” He tilts his head to the side in thought, and Caspar pretends not to watch the way his long hair drapes over his shoulder like a curtain. “I’m… a little thirsty. Do you know a milk tea place anywhere nearby?”

“It’s always sweets with you, isn’t it.”

There is, indeed, a milk tea place nearby—Linhardt decides to try something different from his usual order, though it’s not like Caspar knows the difference between any of the items on the menu anyway. Before he can order at the counter, though, Linhardt stops him with a hand on his wrist. “You should get something for yourself too,” he says, an annoyingly cute furrow in his brow. “I can only ignore my guilt for so long.”

“Guilt?” Caspar laughs. “I’m not really a milk tea person. And anyway, I didn’t even bring any money.”

“That’s okay.” Linhardt scans the menu, before his eyes land on a small freezer cart next to the counter. He hops off the stool he’d been sitting on, slides the freezer open, and plucks out a popsicle. “Here,” he suggests, though it sounds more like a command. “It’s blue. Like you.”

Is Caspar supposed to take that as a compliment or an insult? Maybe it’s just a comment. “I-I mean, sure? If it’s not too expensive—”

Linhardt throws the popsicle onto the counter, which Caspar supposes is answer enough in itself. In fairness, the ice cream _is_ good, something Caspar discovers once they’re back outside and walking leisurely along the street—it’s not too sweet, and it’s refreshingly cold with the sun beating down on them, though it also melts fast thanks to that. “Hey, thanks for this,” Caspar says, nudging Linhardt’s side with his elbow. “I’ll pay you back as soon as we get back, okay?”

“Oh…” Linhardt stares down at his elbow, and Caspar wonders if he’d done something wrong before Linhardt looks back in his eyes and—lo and behold—smiles. “It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.”

“Whoa.” Caspar pretends to be overly-surprised, which isn’t hard considering it’s exactly how he feels anyway. “What, are you warming up to me now? You totally are, aren’t you?”

Linhardt scowls. “Don’t make me fire you.”

“Aww, you wouldn’t, would you? You like me now. You do!” Caspar grins, though he doesn’t have time to pride himself over Linhardt’s little smile for too long—his ice cream is already dripping down to his hand. “Ah, hell.”

“That’s what you get,” Linhardt says, rolling his eyes.

He stares wide-eyed when Caspar licks the melting ice cream off his hand and sticks the rest of the popsicle back in his mouth, though. “What?” Caspar says, pulling the ice cream out with a little pop. “You grossed out or something? Hey, you bought this for me, so I’m not about to waste a single melted drop—oh, damn it.” He laps up the bottom of the popsicle before it can drip any more on his hand.

“No, it’s… nothing…” Linhardt swallows thickly as Caspar takes the ice cream back in his mouth. “D—Do you have to do that?”

“Do what? Eat?” Caspar frowns, finishing off the rest of his ice cream. “Why’s your face all red? Oh, I guess it’s pretty hot out. Where else do you wanna go?”

Considering he has a drink in hand, it’s probably only to be expected that Linhardt gravitates towards a nearby bakery—Caspar certainly doesn’t mind, since this is one of the few times he’s seen Linhardt showing active interest in food that isn’t completely unhealthy. This point is made null when Linhardt refuses to buy anything aside from a dozen milk bread buns, which Caspar probably also should have expected. “This is nicer than I thought,” Linhardt muses aloud, once they’re back on the street once more. “I don’t like walking at all, but… it’s been a while.”

“Since you got to visit places you like?” Caspar asks. He’s carrying the plastic bag containing the eleven other bread buns while Linhardt munches on his first one.

“Mm. I just…” Linhardt looks down at his feet. “Did I ever tell you I wasn’t much of an… adventurous sort of child? I preferred staying in my room and reading books all day. Not that that’s changed much, I suppose.”

“It hasn’t,” Caspar confirms, and he can’t help but smile at Linhardt’s little laugh.

“Yes, well…” Linhardt shrugs. “My father made things worse by consistently dragging me out to his hospital. I never wanted to go, but I suppose he wanted to influence me to be a doctor like him. You can tell that didn’t work, though I know far too much about how to treat a wound than most models do.” He pauses, chewing the bread thoughtfully. “Eventually, leaving my room frightened me altogether,” he mumbles. “I grew out of it after a while, obviously. Now I just don’t like hospitals.”

Caspar huffs under his breath. “I don’t think I’d like your dad at all.”

“I don’t think you would either.” Linhardt smiles again. Today might be the busiest day Caspar’s ever had in terms of Linhardt’s variety in facial expressions. “You… mentioned your father before, I think? How’s your family?”

“Nothing special.” Caspar shrugs. “I’m a second son, so I don’t have much to inherit. They just let me do my own thing, I guess.” He doesn’t mention how his father and older brother were the reasons he scorned the police force and worked as an independent bodyguard, because that’s hardly information Linhardt needs to know. “Uhh… I do have a step-aunt and uncle, though. They’re cool! My aunt looks like my niece.”

Linhardt raises an eyebrow. “What?”

“Yeah, she’s really small and—”

Something that sounds dangerously like thunder rumbles in the distance, and Caspar doesn’t hide his flinch fast enough. “A—Are you alright?” Linhardt asks, pausing in his steps when Caspar halts in the middle of the sidewalk. “That sounded close. Should we get going?”

“I—Yeah!” Caspar swallows, willing his hand to keep from shaking. “I think—I parked the car over there. We’ll have to backtrack a bit, but—”

Just their luck—the rain starts pouring almost immediately afterwards, and there’s no time to think before fleeing for the nearest place for shelter. Thankfully there’s an empty bus stop nearby, one Caspar drags Linhardt underneath, and Linhardt collapses onto one of the small yellow seats. “I—I’ve never really been rained on before either,” Linhardt laughs, running a hand through his drenched hair.

Caspar grins. “What, do you like it or something? You’re laughing!”

“I’m not! I don’t! I—” Linhardt laughs again, louder and… freer, this time, not raising a hand to hide his mouth with or anything, and somehow the sight of him with crinkled eyes and an uncovered laugh is more beautiful than any photo he’s been in. “Your hair! It’s all flat.”

“Wha…? Oh, come on!” Caspar reaches up and desperately fluffs up his hair, but it’s no use—it’s hanging down the side of his face now, and it almost looks like his terrible haircut from ninth-grade again. “Hey, quit it,” he snaps, though he can’t quite keep the mirth out of his own voice. How can he, when Linhardt’s grinning like he’s never seen him before? “It’s not like _you’re_ perfectly dry. You look like a drowned cat!”

Linhardt obviously tries to scowl at him, but his smile is so big that he completely fails. “I do _not._ ”

“It’s fine,” Caspar snorts, sitting down next to Linhardt on the seats and absently brushing the long, soaked strands of green hair out of his face. “Even in drowned-cat-mode, you’re still beautiful, Linhardt.”

 _…Oh,_ Caspar realizes, two seconds later, when Linhardt’s deep blue eyes go saucer-wide, _that… probably sounded a bit too heartfelt, didn’t it._ It doesn’t help that they’re suddenly much closer to each other than they were earlier, now that Caspar’s sitting beside him instead of standing a few ways away.

He’s got his hand on Linhardt’s face, too. Caspar tries not to gulp nervously—it would be too easy to move his hand down to cup Linhardt’s cheek, maybe draw him closer… closer… and Linhardt’s looking at him like he’s drawn the same conclusion, hoping the same hope, his face alight with expectation… And, God, Caspar _knows_ he shouldn’t be doing this, so why can’t he seem to pull away?

“Thank you, Caspar.” Linhardt leans into his hand, tilting his head just slightly. “I think you’re quite handsome too.”

Caspar’s brain feels like it short-circuits and shuts down at that, because he can’t come up with a single appropriate response; instead, what comes out of his mouth is, “Uh.”

Both fortunately and unfortunately, he’s saved from the embarrassment of that one terrible syllable when thunder booms overhead—Caspar flinches so hard, he jerks his arm back and away from Linhardt’s face lest he accidentally slap his client. Linhardt blinks, brow furrowing in confusion, and whatever atmosphere they’d established just seconds ago evaporates in the blink of an eye (or a clap of thunder, as it may be). “Are you okay?” Linhardt asks. “You… reacted again.”

“I, uh. I don’t like thunder.” Caspar stuffs his hands in his pockets, willing them to keep from shaking. He grew out of his initial fear as a child, of course, but whenever he isn’t expecting the loud sound, _especially_ when he’s outside… “It’s nothing. But this rain’s getting hard. We should—We should head back.”

“Alright,” Linhardt concedes, but Caspar doesn’t miss the disappointment that flashes across his face. How can he? Caspar has a feeling that same disappointment is mirrored in his own features.

They make a run for a nearby convenience store, buy a cheap umbrella, and jog the rest of the way back to the parking lot (as well as Linhardt can jog, anyway). Thankfully, the drive back isn’t tense or awkward, mostly because Linhardt hums along to just about every song that comes up on the radio in a way he didn’t use to before. “Do you like singing?” Caspar asks, while they’re stuck at a traffic light.

“Hm? No. I’m not even good at it.”

“You don’t have to be good at something to like it?” Caspar tries glaring at the traffic light and willing it to go green, which is hard when rain keeps slicking down his windshield. “I suck at video games, but I still play them anyway.”

Linhardt’s quiet for a long, thoughtful moment. “I didn’t think of it that way. Do you… want me to sing?”

“Sure, if you want to.”

“Okay. Then—” Linhardt skips a bunch of songs again until he stops at an obscure one Caspar doesn’t recognize. “This one,” he declares, and starts singing along.

He’s absolutely awful. Caspar laughs, listens to the chorus enough to know some words, and sings along equally badly when it plays again.

Linhardt flops onto his bed as soon as they get home some few hours later. “God, I’m exhausted,” he groans, already burying his face in the blankets. Caspar has never seen his bed made, but he supposes that would be rather useless, Linhardt’s entirely personality considered. “You change in the bathroom. I don’t want to move…”

Caspar grins. “Okay, got it. Don’t fall asleep in wet clothes!”

“Yeah, yeah.”

Tired as he is, the day _was_ more fun than usual. Caspar steps in the bathroom, stripping off his rain-soaked clothes and changing into the spare shirt and shorts he’s taken to leaving lying around, already wondering what else he can get done today. It’s still around five in the afternoon, though the storm clouds have darkened the sky enough to make it look like evening already. Maybe he can look up some easy recipes online and try to make something healthy for dinner—

Something _thumps_ outside.

It could’ve just been Linhardt dropping his phone or bag on the floor, but Caspar frowns and decides it’s worth looking outside for; he’s just about done here anyway. “Linhardt?” he calls, pushing the door open—

Linhardt is on the floor, wrapped up in a blanket, a pile of wet clothes dropped next to him. “C… Caspar,” he whispers, peering up at him from under the sheets. “I—I—”

“What’s wrong?” Caspar scrambles to drop to a crouch next to Linhardt, automatically reaching out to hold his arm or elbow or shoulder or _something,_ but he halts in his movements when Linhardt jerks away from him, eyes wide and fearful like a prey being hunted by the predator. He’s never seen Linhardt, usually so calm and composed even in the worst situations, look this terrified before, and it’s starting to scare Caspar too. “Linhardt, are you alright? Hurt anywhere?”

“I’m—I’m—I’m f-fine,” Linhardt eventually chokes out. He’s still shaking violently, visible even under the blanket, but he screws his eyes shut and seems to force himself to take deep breaths before speaking again. “I-I… at the balcony, I…”

Caspar looks up—the balcony is tiny, and he can hardly walk around out there without bumping into the railing, and Linhardt has much the same problem. The curtains over it are usually drawn closed, but they’re fluttering open now, the rain soaking some discarded clothes close to the balcony sliding doors. “Okay. You’re doing okay. I’m here, Linhardt.”

Linhardt reaches for him with one trembling hand, and Caspar lets him grip onto his arm hard enough to leave marks. “The laundry was getting wet,” he rasps. That explains the pile of scattered clothes on the floor, then. “So I went out to get them, and went back in, b-but I didn’t close the curtains again because I forgot, I’m sorry, I forgot—”

“It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s not your fault.” Caspar takes Linhardt’s hand in his own, rubbing soothing circles at the back of his palm. It’s such a tiny mistake—barely _even_ a mistake, since it’s not like they’d ever made a rule to keep the curtains closed at all times. It’s certainly not something Linhardt should be apologizing so frantically over. “What else happened?”

“I… I was changing.” Linhardt presses his forehead against Caspar’s sternum. He’s never been this close before, and Caspar dearly hopes his heartbeat doesn’t sound like a jackhammer. “Because… no wet clothes… but—but I thought I saw something, from my—my peripheral, so I turned around, and then—from the building across the street, I… I saw it. I couldn’t miss it.”

“Saw—what?”

“A flash.” Linhardt swallows. “A camera flash.”

Caspar doesn’t even register his own body standing and getting ready to storm out of the apartment until Linhardt grabs at his wrist, pulling him back. He doesn’t exactly succeed, but Caspar does stop in his tracks, mind only now catching up to his motions. “Don’t,” Linhardt pleads, desperation laced in his every breath. “Please, I—don’t leave me. I don’t care who it is, please just don’t leave me alone, _please._ ”

“That asshole might still be there, Lin!” Caspar shouts, the nickname slipping out before he can think better of it. “It’s my job to catch whoever the hell that is and—”

Linhardt doesn’t even blink at the volume of his voice. “Please just _stay,_ ” he interrupts, and he sounds so—so scared, so vulnerable, so _unlike_ himself, that Caspar can’t bring it in himself to take another step further outside the apartment. “I don’t want to be alone,” Linhardt continues, casting his gaze downwards. “Don’t leave me. Please.”

A memory rises, unbidden, in Caspar’s head: _Why did they leave anyway?_ he’s in the car asking, 5:30 in the morning, sun peeking over the horizon. _You’re not a bad person._

“Okay, I—” Caspar takes a deep breath, dropping back down to let Linhardt have an easier time of holding on to him. “Okay. I won’t leave. I’m not going anywhere, Linhardt. But I have to at least close the curtains.”

Linhardt looks reluctant to let go for even a second, but after a moment, he retracts his arm, wrapping himself further up in his blanket cocoon. Caspar slides the balcony doors shut with a click, but not before glaring out at the building Linhardt mentioned—it looks like a typical gray office building, though Caspar can’t remember what sort of company it is or if they’ve ever met anyone from there. But with the heavy rain, he can’t make out anything through the windows, much less anything that might look like a camera.

 _It could have been lightning,_ Caspar suddenly thinks. _It could have been lightning and thunder, and Linhardt mistook that for a camera flash._ How could a flash be bright enough to have been seen from all the way across the street and through a window anyway?

And yet… well, Caspar’s not one to doubt. Besides, he remembers something else Linhardt had said, his voice dripping with contempt: _Camera flashes are such a bother._ If anyone could pick out something like that in the middle of a thunderstorm, it would be Linhardt, after all.

After drawing the curtains closed, Caspar returns to Linhardt’s side—he hasn’t moved from his spot on the floor, and he doesn’t look like he plans to either. “I’m still here,” Caspar reminds him, laying a hand atop Linhardt’s knuckles. “Do you want to do anything? Or would you rather lie down and rest?”

Linhardt heaves a deep sigh. “I… Yes. I want that.”

Caspar helps him up onto his bed, clearing it of his rained-on clothes and retrieving Linhardt’s claw machine plushie from the desk to tuck against his chest… his _bare_ chest, Caspar realizes. “Hold on, let me get you something to wear,” he mumbles, throwing the wardrobe open and grabbing the first comfortable-looking shirt he finds. Linhardt’s _probably_ wearing underwear, but it’s not like Caspar wants to check that—nor does he think Linhardt would want him to—so he’ll simply have to hope.

Once Linhardt is dressed again and unraveled from his blanket, Caspar perches at the very edge of the bed. It’s small, but there’s just enough space to sit on. “Little better?” he ventures, brushing stray strands of hair out of Linhardt’s face. He’d just done the same earlier, when they’d been out in the rain, and the familiar action seems to calm Linhardt down somewhat. If there’s anything Caspar’s learned about Linhardt so far, it’s definitely that he likes familiarity.

“M… Mm.” Linhardt sighs, eyes fluttering closed. His breathing is back to normal, and he isn’t trembling as much as earlier. “I’m sorry. I… I overreacted.”

Caspar pulls his hand back. “Why are you apologizing— _overreacted?_ ”

“Things like these are to be expected in my line of work.” Linhardt pulls the blanket up to his mouth, so his next words come out muffled. “I shouldn’t have panicked in the first place. I’m… I’m sorry for the trouble—”

“ _Linhardt,_ ” Caspar cuts in, turning around fully to slam his palms flat on the bed and startling Linhardt to look up at him, “you shouldn’t be saying sorry for _panicking!_ You caught someone taking photos of you while you were changing. So _what_ if you’re a model? _No one_ deserves to have something like that happen to them.” Shit, now _Caspar’s_ the one who feels like crying—his eyes are getting hot just looking down at how lost Linhardt looks. “You’re allowed to be _upset,_ Linhardt.”

Silence falls upon them, thick as Linhardt’s wool blanket. Caspar stares down at his hands, not sure what to follow _that_ up with, until Linhardt mumbles, “Earlier, you said…”

“Huh?”

“You called me _Lin._ ” Linhardt looks up at him, and Caspar’s not sure if it’s just the lighting, but his cheeks look like they’re growing pink. “A while ago. I don’t think you realized.”

“Oh. I… I didn’t.” Caspar clears his throat. “Sorry, it slipped. I won’t do it again.”

“No! No, no, I… want you to.” Linhardt sighs and shakes his head, drawing the blanket all the way up to cover his face entirely. “Ugh. It’s just—I never got particularly… friendly with anyone for them to use a nickname with me… but I like it. So you should use it. That’s an order from your client.”

Caspar huffs out a tired laugh. “Yeah? Okay, fine, if you say so, Linha—uhh, Lin.” Man, that feels weird. But he can’t lie—he _definitely_ doesn’t mind it. “Well, er… you’re probably tired. Take a nap and I’ll wake you up for dinner or something, if you want.”

“W—Wait.” Linhardt pulls the blanket down just enough for his eyes to be visible. “I… I don’t want to sleep alone.”

What the hell? Now Caspar’s heart feels ready to beat straight out of his chest and _splat_ on the wall or something. “Do you want me to stay here ‘til you fall asleep?”

“No,” Linhardt says, his tone matter-of-fact, “I want you to lie down and sleep with me.”

“Wow,” Caspar says, intelligently. “That’s very… forward.”

“Is that a yes or no?”

Caspar turns around for a brief moment to swallow nervously, give himself a few seconds to ready his poor mental state, then finally manage a choked, “It’s a yes,” and lifting the edge of the blanket to slide under. The bed is small, clearly only made for one person in mind, and Linhardt has to back up against the wall just to keep Caspar from falling off the edge entirely, but… it’s comfortable, somehow. Warm.

Linhardt buries his face in Caspar’s chest, sighing against his skin. “You’re right,” he mumbles. “I know you’re right, but I can’t… I just keep thinking I should have expected something like that to happen. I let my guard down after the anonymous hatemail stopped coming, but…”

“Tomorrow I’ll poke around in that office,” Caspar says, reaching up to card his fingers through Linhardt’s hair. “We’ll catch this guy, whoever it is, okay? Don’t worry. I promised to do my job, and I won’t let you down.”

Yet Caspar can’t help but feel guilt streak through him at those words—sure, he’d promised and everything, but what did it matter? All he’s really done so far as Linhardt’s bodyguard is drive him to places, gape at him in the middle of a pornography shoot he was clearly uncomfortable in, and of all things, _jerk off_ to him. The one time Linhardt had actually _needed_ him, Caspar had been in the bathroom. He should have done something sooner, should have been quicker, should have been more _alert_ like any proper bodyguard, not let his guard down just like Linhardt because the hatemail had stopped coming. Why did he let himself get distracted by his own client? He has to focus on the job, has to think with his brain, not with his dick!

The quiet, along with Caspar’s internal monologue, drags on long enough that he wonders if Linhardt’s already fallen asleep, until Linhardt sighs again and shakes his head. “Okay,” he mumbles. Now he sounds sleepy. “Really, I… I’m just glad you were here.”

“You, uh. You are?” Caspar had been thinking something completely different.

Linhardt nods, hugging his duck plushie closer to his chest. “Thank you,” he breathes. “For… For not leaving.”

“I… of course.” It’s Caspar’s turn to sigh, gently undoing the knots in Linhardt’s hair. “Of course, Lin.”

Maybe he’s not doing his job as well as he could be, but… at least Linhardt feels safe enough to fall asleep in Caspar’s arms like this. And that has to count for something, right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> references:  
> [halter dress](https://www.simplydresses.com/shop/viewitem-PD2165290)  
> [blanket? cape?](https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/175765)  
> [claw machine plushie](https://shopee.ph/Cute-spherical-piglet-plush-toy-dolphin-penguin-panda-doll-claw-machine-doll-girl-doll-gift-i.87190257.7738277376) (chick) (i actually have one of these, the gray hamster LOL)


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Caspar still isn’t quite used to waking up on an actual bed now, rather than just some extra blankets and pillows piled on the floor. He can’t say he dislikes it, though, that’s for sure.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this took... a while. whoops. anyway, thank you to danie for the donation again! ❤  
> from this chapter onward we will be heading into the Plot so stay tuned if that's your thing i guess

Caspar still isn’t quite used to waking up on an actual bed now, rather than just some extra blankets and pillows piled on the floor. He can’t say he dislikes it, though, that’s for sure.

Yet tonight is different—it’s just hours before the fashion show tomorrow, which is why Linhardt had declared requiring a minimum of twenty hours of sleep before flopping out cold on the bed. Not all that surprising, really. Caspar has long since given up on trying to moderate his sleep schedule, since it’s clear Linhardt knows his body and its system requirements best, like a computer operator.

But he digresses. Caspar blinks and rubs at his eyes, but even though it’s too dark to see much, it’s obvious by the coldness that Linhardt isn’t in bed beside him.

His first instinct is to check the bathroom before panicking, and Caspar’s glad he does—light is coming out from the gap between the bathroom door and the floor, and Caspar can hear some unhurried, familiar shuffling that sound exactly like Linhardt’s lazy footsteps, so at least there doesn’t seem to be any danger. He’s been paranoid since that rainy day with the camera flash, but even after searching the office building and asking the employees who work there, they had all seemed genuinely confused and innocent. It was both a relief and a disappointment.

Caspar sighs. Now that he’s awake, he might as well use the toilet after Linhardt’s done too. It’s not like Linhardt should take too long, right? Unless he’s doing number two, but hopefully Caspar doesn’t have to break out the air freshener or something. He moves closer towards the bathroom, yawning and trying to smooth down the ruffles in his hair—

He freezes. That noise…

No, no. Surely he’s mistaken, right? It can’t be that. Can it? Linhardt hardly seems like the sort of person to wake up, sacrificing his precious sleep, just to do something like this. Yeah. Caspar takes another confident step towards the bathroom.

His confidence shatters into pieces when he hears what can only realistically be called a soft moan coming from behind the door.

 _No no no no no._ Caspar’s first thought is to take several steps _back_ and dive under the blankets, never to resurface again, but his feet are rooted to the spot. Could he have been mistaken? Maybe he’d just heard… one of the apartment neighbors. That must be it. The walls are pretty thin, after all. Besides, Linhardt would never—

“Ah! M-Mm… God…”

Yeah, Caspar can’t deny it to himself any longer—that’s _definitely_ Linhardt’s voice, and Caspar would recognize it no matter how heavily-laden with lust and pleasure it is.

Standing outside the bathroom as he is, he can hear something else now too: rhythmic, slightly wet noises, sounds Caspar’s mind races to conjure images for. Is Linhardt leaning against the door right now, one hand wrapped around himself and stroking slowly, steadily, like how Linhardt does all things? Or—as Caspar blinks at the way the bathroom door rattles just slightly—is he… doing something else? _Using_ something else, something that can hypothetically be stuck onto the door and…?

That thought has Caspar fleeing back to the bed, nearly tripping on some random object on the floor, and buries himself under the blankets, but it’s no use—his dick has risen in interest already, brushing against the fabric of his shorts. Caspar tries his absolute best to, once again, think of the least sexy things possible—this seems to happen often when around Linhardt, probably because Linhardt is the sexiest thing possible—but arousal spikes through him when he hears the door audibly clatter against its frame and Linhardt’s choked moan comes through loud and clear.

 _Must’ve hit the spot,_ Caspar’s brain sneers at him. Caspar screws his eyes shut, ignores his aching erection to the best of his abilities, and once again tries to think of something else. Their schedule for tomorrow…

His mind makes a record-scratch noise. _Wait._ If Caspar can hear Linhardt from where they both are right now, doesn’t that mean Linhardt… could have heard him too, the other day? When it had been Caspar in the bathroom, leaning against the wall and jerking off to him? Linhardt had been under the blankets when Caspar stepped out, too, and he’d looked flushed and breathless under the covers. Could he have possibly…?

The thought of Linhardt touching himself under the blankets while listening to Caspar, and then _continuing_ to do so while Caspar had been making breakfast and walking around shirtless, almost drives Caspar insane. In such a tiny apartment, they had been barely five steps away from each other. What had he done? Is he doing something similar to right now, only he’d reached behind himself instead to use his fingers?

A throb of his cock reminds Caspar this is doing the exact opposite of calming himself down, and he once again tries to focus on something else. He’s painfully hard, but he will _not_ succumb. Remain professional. Besides, what if Linhardt finishes (gah) and walks back to the bed just to see Caspar with his dick out? No, Caspar has to stay Strong and Levelheaded and Not Horny.

After a few more minutes where Caspar frantically exhausts topic after topic in his head, the noises stop and the bathroom door opens, washing the apartment with light for a brief second before Linhardt flicks them off. Caspar sneakily cracks an eye open to see the vague outline of Linhardt in the dark, heading over to toss something into a drawer before yawning softly and clambering back into the bed, at which point Caspar closes his eye again. Hopefully he can finally get some sleep now—he doesn’t even want to use the toilet anymore, or step foot into the bathroom ever again, for that matter.

Then Linhardt does the absolute worst thing he could have done in that situation, which is to wrap his arms around Caspar’s stomach like he’s cuddling a giant teddy bear. He sighs, warm breath tickling the back of Caspar’s neck, and buries his face against Caspar’s back and seems to instantly fall asleep.

One of his hands dangles frighteningly close to Caspar’s crotch.

Caspar does not, in fact, get much sleep that night.

“What’s up with you?” Linhardt pokes Caspar’s forehead. “You’ve been sleeping on your feet all day. That’s my job.”

“Guh.” Caspar shakes his head, both to refute Linhardt’s observation and to wake himself up a little. All he really accomplishes is make himself dizzy for the umpteenth time today, but at least it’s something. “I, uh, I just couldn’t sleep last night, I guess.” Maybe he should have made more coffee earlier.

Linhardt frowns. “Was something bothering you?”

He actually sounds concerned for once that it takes Caspar a bit off-guard. It’s probably because Linhardt rarely has actual reason to worry about Caspar, but it has his idiot heart skipping a beat all the same. “I…” Caspar pauses. Should he tease Linhardt a little? “I heard weird noises, I think.”

Unexpectedly enough, Linhardt doesn’t even blink. “Maybe it was a stray cat. They make their way up onto the balcony sometimes.” And then he turns back to the array of clothes before him, signaling the conversation is clearly over.

Caspar resists the urge to puff his cheeks out like a child. If Linhardt implied _he_ heard weird noises on the same night Caspar had been jerking off in the bathroom, Caspar would be embarrassed beyond belief. Then again, Linhardt’s already seen him with a hard-on, so maybe they’ve crossed some kind of line between bros. Caspar has no idea. He’s done pretty well so far keeping relative strangers from seeing him with a hard-on, after all.

Caspar’s never really paid attention to fashion shows before, since they’re hardly the sort of stuff he’s interested in, but no one here seems to mind. Bernadetta darts from person to person, fretting over the smallest details and tiniest flaws, while Edelgard does her best to keep up and reassure her everything is fine. Dorothea, the other Eagles model, changes in and out of different outfits so quickly that Caspar hardly even registers her nakedness until she’s dressed again. Other employees swarm the backroom of the venue, forcing Caspar to stick near the back so he doesn’t get in anyone’s way. At least he has a decent view of Linhardt from here, but being too far from the man makes him more than a bit antsy now.

Ashe is here too, Caspar remembers. They’d said hi earlier when they arrived, but Ashe has been too busy flying around the room and double-checking everything with everyone to say much else. But Ashe had promised he’s free for the rest of the day after this, so Caspar is set on asking him for some new recipes—he can’t make Linhardt omelettes everyday. For one, they’d run out of eggs, and Caspar isn’t keen on dragging Linhardt back to the grocery store.

Then he frowns. This is a public event in a public venue—there are going to be a bunch of official photographers around, sure, but whoever had taken those photos from last week might be lurking around and hiding behind the rest of the camera flashes. What can he do aside from glare out at the crowd, though…?

“Alright, Linhardt, you next,” Edelgard snaps out, shaking Caspar from his thoughts. “Do not fall asleep mid-walk again, or else.”

“Or else what?” Linhardt grumbles, but he doesn’t wait for a response before walking languidly over to where a small group of employees have congregated near the runway. Then, for some inexplicable reason, one of the staff members tugs at the loose dress he’d been trying on and lets it fall to the floor, leaving Linhardt completely naked.

Caspar almost chokes on his spit. “What—What—”

“You again?” someone Caspar vaguely remembers being one of Ashe’s subordinates huffs. “Don’t panic. They’re just helping him change.”

“I mean—he’s not wearing—?”

“What, underwear?” At Caspar’s nod, the person shrugs and turns back to fiddling with their camera. “Most models don’t during a fashion show. Makes it easier to change in and out of lingerie and stuff, and also keeps underwear lines from being seen, you know?”

They walk away before Caspar can ask anything more, and when he turns back to where Linhardt had been standing, it’s to see him already wearing the black dress he’d tried on at Bernadetta’s boutique last week and walking out onto the runway. He has to admit that had definitely been one of the fastest outfit changes he’s witnessed so far—and he has witnessed a lot of fast outfit changes—but now his paranoia has just jumped up several levels. What if the voyeur from last time is around here, sneaking pictures while Linhardt’s changing again? They’d be nearer to him too, not a whole street away, and they might be able to zoom in further on certain… parts…

He stomps over to where the staff members are standing—Dorothea’s just returned from the runway, and they’re helping her change this time, fumbling with a million tiny clasps on the lingerie set she’s modeling. Caspar has never been less interested in boobs in his life. “What is it? We’re kinda busy here,” one of the employees says, a hint of impatience in their tone.

Caspar clears his throat. “You know, I’ve gotten pretty alright at helping people change recently,” he says, trying not to sound like a total weirdo. It’s not like he’s lying—sometimes Linhardt only has energy to sit and stand without moving, and it falls to Caspar to help him in and out of his outfit for the day.

Dorothea raises her eyebrows at him. “I’m not interested.”

“What? No! I’m not talking about—”

The staff hurry Dorothea out onto the runway before he can finish, and she steps out without a second glance back at him. The employees give him dirty looks. “Aren’t you just a bodyguard? Let us do our jobs,” the one who had spoken earlier says.

Linhardt chooses that moment to return, yawning as soon as he steps out of the runway and into the dressing room. Caspar swats the employees’ hands away when they reach for the clasp at the back of the dress and says, “Exactly! I’m his bodyguard, and I’ve helped him outta this stuff a bunch of times, so let _me_ do my job too!”

“…What are you doing?” Linhardt asks, but he sounds more amused than anything. Could he have predicted this, considering Caspar’s track record? The thought is embarrassing, but at least that also means Caspar’s consistent. “Not that I mind at all, but you really have to stop aggravating employees. I’ve been receiving complaints in my emails.”

Caspar pulls the dress off of him, very pointedly _not_ touching Linhardt’s butt in the process, and grabs the next outfit off the nearby clothes rack. He’s eternally glad he had skimmed the lineup earlier out of boredom now. “Really? My bad. But I can’t help it! And besides, it _is_ my job. I can’t risk anyone… you know.”

“What, copping a feel?” Linhardt rolls his eyes. “Thank you so very much for preserving my dignity, but I have gone through worse than this bunch. Edelgard makes very sure anyone working for her are decent people… largely through her authoritarian regime…”

“I heard that,” Edelgard calls out from the back of the room.

“I was hoping you would,” Linhardt easily returns. He raises his arms to help Caspar slip the outfit over him, then turns around to face him to let Caspar button the front up. “There’s something strangely intimate about this when it’s just with one other person, don’t you think?” he murmurs, standing so close that Caspar feels his breath on his face.

Caspar feels his cheeks warm. Linhardt has a point there—it had just been work, if a little strange, the first few times he’d helped Linhardt change, but after a while (and especially after he’d jerked off to him in the bathroom like a degenerate) it had started feeling almost… well, Caspar’s not sure if _intimate_ is the word he would use, but it certainly comes close. It doesn’t help that they’re facing each other and that Caspar’s fingers brush against Linhardt’s bare chest with every button because of the fabric.

But no. Caspar shouldn’t be doing this, shouldn’t be taking advantage of his position just to… do stuff like this with his client! Getting off to the thought of him is one thing, but actually following through with the weird mix of feelings in his chest is something else entirely. _Remain professional,_ he tells himself for what feels like the hundredth time.

So Caspar just laughs, a touch of nervousness mixing in the sound, and says, “I dunno what you’re talking about. This dress sure is a lot of work, though!”

“…Hm,” Linhardt says, and Caspar wonders if he imagines the hint of disappointment he hears in that one syllable.

Caspar’s obviously slower by himself as compared to a troop of professional clothes-changers—what is he even supposed to call their job?—but he gets it done, despite the blushing and stuttering and apologizing every time he happens to accidentally brush against Specific Parts of Linhardt’s body that Caspar has no business being anywhere within fifty feet of them. Linhardt, for his part, doesn’t seem to mind in the slightest, but then he also looks half-asleep, so maybe he just doesn’t notice.

At least there doesn’t seem to be anyone snapping pictures of Linhardt while he’s changing. He can’t do anything if the stalker is with the rest of the photographers around the runway, but at least Linhardt’s dressed then, and the photos will be for public view anyway.

Caspar heaves a sigh of relief as soon as it’s over—by now it’s late in the afternoon, and though he’d never imagined working a fashion show behind the scenes could be so much work, he’s exhausted beyond belief. Ashe heads into the dressing room once the rest of the photographers outside disperse and collapses onto a couch, nearly stabbing himself in the eye with a clothes hanger, and Edelgard finally lets Linhardt free from her clutches. “You have better been taking care of yourself,” she says, hands on her hips, maybe to make herself look taller.

Linhardt crosses his arms. “I’m doing fine, thank you for asking,” he mutters.

Edelgard slants a glance over at where Caspar’s standing, her eyes narrowed in clear suspicion. Caspar tries to go for a serious nod, because Edelgard doesn’t seem like the sort of person who appreciates a wave hello. “Are you sure about him?” she asks, more straightforward than Caspar had been expecting. “You’ve gone through, what, four other bodyguards, right?”

Linhardt absently picks his ear. “Five.”

“Five.” Edelgard sighs. “But he’s lasted a little longer than most. Has it been a month already? I’m almost impressed.”

“A month and a week,” Linhardt corrects under his breath, so quietly Caspar has to strain his ears to hear him. Honestly, he probably shouldn’t be eavesdropping like this, but it’s hard when they’re within hearing distance. “I’ll admit he isn’t as much of a bother as the previous ones were.”

“High praise, coming from you.” Edelgard sounds like she means to say more, but—Caspar jolts in surprise—Hubert comes out of nowhere to tap her on the shoulder and show her something on his phone. She hums and nods, then bids Linhardt goodbye before drifting off to Bernadetta and Dorothea, likely to say her farewells for today as well. Mostly Caspar’s just trying to figure out where in the room Hubert might have been standing by, hidden away so well that even Caspar couldn’t find him…

“Caspar?” Linhardt calls, lazily waving a hand in front of his face.

“Yeah!” Caspar supposes he’ll just have to live in fear of Hubert popping out of the shadows forever. “Should we get going? You can get back to, I dunno, napping or something, your schedule’s free for the rest of the day.”

Linhardt visibly brightens. “That sounds good. I want ice cream too… and milk tea…”

So much sweetness at once sounds sickening, but it’s not like Caspar’s going to be the one eating it, so he just nods and tugs at Ashe’s arm dangling off the couch. “Wake up, Ashe! Let’s get going! I need you to teach me how to make pancakes.”

They get a pint of (after much consideration from all three of them) vanilla ice cream from a convenience store, along with some other assortments, and Ashe gives up on trying to convince Linhardt to save it for later, as Linhardt simply digs a spoon out of the glove compartment and pries the pint open to eat in the car. Ashe, however, draws the line at milk tea too. “Have you just been letting him have whatever he wants, Caspar!?” he squawks, waving frantically at the ice cream Linhardt is already going to town on.

Caspar scratches the back of his head. “Uhh, maybe?”

“This is why you’re not getting any healthier,” Ashe says to Linhardt this time, tugging at his ear. Linhardt mumbles and grumbles but doesn’t slow down in his ice cream devouring in the slightest. To Caspar, Ashe explains, “Everyone said eating sweets all the time would ruin his figure, so he started _only_ eating sweets and nothing else out of spite.”

“Oh!” Caspar throws his head back and laughs, nearly crashing against a swerving car ahead of them. “Whoa, Linhardt! You know, that does sound like you!”

Linhardt smiles. He’s been doing that more often lately, and Caspar would be lying if he said he didn’t like this development. “I think it was two years ago. Then I started getting sick, so I went back to eating rice, at least…”

“Rice isn’t much better,” Ashe sighs. “Okay, Linhardt, think of it this way. You get ice cream today, you can have milk tea tomorrow.”

Linhardt blows a stray strand of hair out of his face. “I don’t see how spacing the sweets out is any improvement. They’ll both end up in my stomach all the same anyway.”

Ashe stares out the car window like a brooding teenager listening to Taylor Swift on their phone. “This is hopeless,” he says, more to himself than anything. Caspar’s inclined to agree. In the end, Linhardt gets his milk tea, and Ashe even lets Linhardt buy him some chocolate drink from the same store.

“Sorry it’s so messy,” Caspar says, opening the apartment door for Linhardt and Ashe. “We both woke up a bit late a while ago, so there’s stuff all over the floor…”

Linhardt kicks his heels to the side of the entryway, which of course only really adds to the mess. Actually, why is Caspar the one apologizing for the mess in the first place? This isn’t _his_ apartment. Then again, Linhardt apologizing for something as insignificant as the cleanliness of his apartment is downright laughable now that Caspar knows him. “I’m going to… nap,” he says, already yawning. “If you’re getting dinner, wake me up.” He stuffs the ice cream in the fridge then flops onto his bed, which as far as Caspar is concerned is the end of Linhardt for the rest of the day.

Ashe stretches his arms above his head, camera still strung around his neck. Apparently, he feels safer knowing it’s with him. “This place hasn’t changed at all,” he comments, giving something on the floor a pointed look. Caspar plasters a grin on his face and tries to innocuously kick a pair of boxers out of sight. “Are you seriously going to make pancakes _now,_ Caspar?”

“Why not? We can have pancakes for dinner,” Caspar suggests. On the bed, Linhardt stirs, as if the promise of something sweet reaches him even in his sleep. At Ashe’s frown, though, Caspar laughs and says, “I’m kidding! Okay, what can you teach me, then? Stuff that are easy and fast to make…” The mention of rice earlier had made him start craving for some fried rice, but that hardly sounds filling enough for a meal, even if Linhardt has been visibly putting on some healthy weight now that he’s eating omelettes everyday. Maybe a beef bowl, so Caspar can have rice _and_ meat… but does Linhardt like beef?

Ashe clears his throat. “Uh, why don’t you search up dinner ideas or something—can I use the bathroom first, real quick? I haven’t been able to use the toilet since I woke up this morning…”

“Oh, sheesh, go ahead, you don’t have to ask.”

Caspar stows some of their other purchases in the fridge and cabinets, then meanders over to the kitchenette to stare blankly down at the stove. Now that he’s thinking about beef bowls, he can’t stop thinking about beef bowls… it’s been a pretty long time since he’s had decent food, really… what he would do for some tonkatsu right now. He almost salivates at the thought. What sort of food aside from sweets does Linhardt like anyway? In fact, for how long is Caspar going to be cooking for Linhardt?

That gives him pause. It’s not like Caspar hates the job—in fact, he finds himself liking it way more than he expected—but he’s not so optimistic as to think this can last forever. Maybe he’ll work with Linhardt for as long as the stalker stays unidentified? But then what comes next? Caspar will have to look for another job then, hopefully through his new connections with Linhardt and the rest of the Black Eagles agency.

Yet the thought of going back to living alone has Caspar feeling oddly empty in a way it didn’t used to before.

He doesn’t get to think much further than that—Ashe is throwing the bathroom door open and yelping, “C-Caspar! Come here!” and Caspar scrambles to obey. The panic in Ashe’s voice has Caspar already half-certain a roach is in the shower stall or something, but instead Ashe sputters, “T-This—Did you know about this?”

“Know what?” Caspar repeats, utterly bewildered and only growing more confused when Ashe points at a small, barely-visible black dot on the hand dryer neither he nor Linhardt ever use. “What, that? Is it like, dirt or something?”

“Caspar,” Ashe says, voice shaking, “that’s a hidden camera.”

Caspar goes through what feels like several stages of shock before he finally manages to rein in his whirling thoughts. Unfortunately, all he can really manage to say is, “A _what?_ ”

“You know, tiny cameras that you can plant almost anywhere!” Ashe says, waving his arms around. “It’s probably recording us right now, in fact. You definitely didn’t install this, did you? It’s not like either of you would have a use for it. Which means someone else might have been in here.”

Someone else—a _stranger_ —setting foot in this apartment, _their_ apartment, is what snaps Caspar out of his initial confusion and morphs it into a familiar hot, furious rage. “You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” he snarls. “How the hell would they have been able to get in aside from through the Goddamn balcony? I double-checked if we locked the door this morning, and we definitely did.”

“I-I’m not blaming you,” Ashe stammers. “It’s definitely possible that whoever this is could have come in through the balcony. But first, let me dismantle this before it can record anything else, alright?”

“I—” Caspar sighs and runs a hand through his hair, messing it up even more. “Yeah, okay. Sorry.” Blowing up on Ashe isn’t going to do any of them any good. It’s hard to keep the burning anger under control, because just _imagining_ the stalker—or _a_ stalker—somehow managing to get in the apartment, the only place Linhardt ever feels safe in anymore, makes Caspar want to break something, preferably the stalker’s nose.

Then what Ashe said catches up to him. “Wait, dismantle it?”

Something shuffles outside the bathroom, but Caspar’s long used to Linhardt’s footsteps by now that he doesn’t panic anymore. “What’s going on here?” Linhardt asks, rubbing his eyes. He’d only be asleep for five minutes at most, but his hair is already all over the place. “Normally you use the bathroom on your own, you know…”

Ashe sighs and explains the situation as best as he can, but Linhardt only needs to hear the words _hidden camera_ before he’s straightening from his usual slouch, a scowl overtaking his sleepy expression. “So whoever that was got in,” he mutters. “I wish I were more surprised.”

“I can take it apart in a minute, but I’ll need something to pry this open…” Ashe gives the hand dryer a contemplative look. “You guys don’t use this anyway, do you?”

Caspar shakes his head, but mentally mourns the loss of their useless hand dryer anyway. Ashe nods. “I can check for any recorded footage on my laptop too. It’s a good thing I brought it with me—”

“ _No!_ ” Caspar shouts before he can think twice, before blinking and turning to face Linhardt, who had shouted right along with him.

The awkward silence drags on for another few seconds before Linhardt breaks eye contact, clears his throat, and looks back at Ashe. “No, please,” he eventually mutters. “There’s… There’s no need for that. I’d rather we just… I don’t know. Ask the police for help or something.”

Ashe still seems suspicious, giving the both of them narrowed looks, but shakes his head. “I wouldn’t trust the police with this. They didn’t do anything last time, remember?”

“Last time?” Caspar asks.

“Yeah. Something like this happened before, some… I don’t know, three years back?” Ashe frowns. “You know of Seiros, right, Caspar? Linhardt used to work there.”

“Oh, I know ‘em,” Caspar grumbles, shooting Linhardt a look. “There was that guy we bumped into, like, a week ago or something.”

Linhardt nods, looking uneasy. “There was a bit of… drama when I switched agencies. The Eagles signed me as soon as my contract with Seiros ended, so it was just shy of poaching me. Not really a problem, since I hated working there anyway, and it was a little entertaining hearing all about the lawsuits they threatened to file…”

Ashe huffs in mild amusement. “Yeah, well, there was this huge scandal that broke out about how Seiros employees were supposedly stalking models—or anyone who looked good, I guess—and did things like taking photos of them and installing cameras like these in the victims’ rooms, and then they sold the photos and footage they got to porn sites. It, um, happened to my brother.”

Caspar’s eyes feel ready to bug out of their sockets. “Your older bro? Christophe?”

“He worked with Seiros a few times, so they must’ve known him from there,” Ashe mumbles. “Anyway, Lonato heard about it and started investigating, and eventually traced the evidence back to Seiros and sued them. But they turned the case around and framed _him_ instead. That’s why he went bankrupt those years ago.”

“It’s almost admirable,” Linhardt mutters, “how one company can be so vicious. Did you know their former CEO could turn into a dragon?”

“ _What?_ ” Caspar gawks. That sounds kind of awesome, if you take away all the illegal stuff.

“No, no, her boxing _nickname_ was something to do with a dragon,” Ashe corrects.

“ _Boxing nickname?_ ”

Ashe waves this away like this information isn’t just as important as everything else. “Moving on—well, I’m not surprised both of you don’t know much about this. Seiros bribed most news outlets to keep from publicizing the scandal, and the Blue Lions agency took their side.” He scowls, and Caspar remembers Ashe mentioned having worked for the Lions in the past—this was probably when he quit. “The Eagles did their best to inform the public about it, though.”

“I think it was Lysithea who was our social media intern then,” Linhardt muses. “She, Edelgard, and Hubert had a wonderful time tearing that company to pieces, if I recall… and the Golden Deer remained neutral on the surface, but their Facebook page shared all of our posts on the matter.”

Caspar can barely keep up with all these new names, but he nods like he understands anyway. “So you think Seiros might be involved again ‘cause of, uh… this?” He points at the hidden camera, which still looks like a simple black spot of dirt to him. Then again, he supposes that’s how hidden cameras stay hidden.

Ashe taps his chin. “It’s certainly possible. Or it could just be a regular stalker with access to and knowledge of hidden cameras. We won’t know until we…” He frowns. “No, we need hard evidence to be able to accuse Seiros of this. Even after that scandal, they’re still one of the biggest and most influential agencies in the country.”

Caspar hadn’t previously known a model agency could be so powerful. “Okay, so what do we do? Should I challenge the dragon CEO into a boxing match?”

“It’s obvious,” Linhardt declares. “We sneak into their main office building.”

“What?” Caspar deflates. He’d been looking forward to hearing a unanimous _yes_ to his idea instead.

“ _What?_ ” Ashe yelps, several times more distressed than Caspar. “L-Linhardt, we can’t just do that! I mean… can we? You’d think a company of their scale would have crazy good security. Wait…” He squints at Linhardt. “Don’t tell me you’re just using this as an excuse to sneak in somewhere.”

Linhardt looks away and pretends to be very interested in a specific spot on the floor.

In the end, Caspar and Linhardt finally agree to let Ashe take the hand dryer camera apart, but only if Linhardt gets to look at the recorded footage first. They watch in barely-disguised awe as Ashe works, his fingers moving faster than the human eye can keep up, using random everyday things like their toothbrushes (Caspar says goodbye to his) as substitutes for actual tools. Caspar’s not expecting it to actually work, but less than ten minutes later the hand dryer comes apart and Ashe picks out the tiny camera embedded inside. “That… Where did you learn how to do that?” Linhardt weakly asks.

“Oh, you know,” Ashe says vaguely. He leaves the bathroom and heads over to where he’d left his bag on the floor near the entryway to dig his laptop out, along with a small pouch of what look like various technological odds-and-ends Caspar can’t make sense of. He doesn’t follow that answer up with anything, only plugs something in the other thing and another thing… and… Caspar’s getting dizzy now… into the laptop. “Ah, here we go.”

Linhardt dives for the laptop, looking frazzled, but the panic in his face fades away to be replaced with mild confusion. “There’s nothing.”

“Nothing?” Caspar moves to look over Linhardt’s shoulder, feeling his nose twitch when Linhardt’s long hair tickles his face. “There, there’s something!”

“No, I mean… it didn’t record much.” Linhardt opens the video file, but he’s right—it almost looks like a still image, with how absolutely nothing happens. It’s kind of—no, _absolutely_ —disgusting how the camera has a really good vantage point of the shower stall, Caspar notes with a scowl.

Ashe shifts over to Linhardt’s other side. “Look,” he says, pointing at a date on the screen. “It was created today, so whoever planted this here did it today too. I don’t think you would have missed this camera anyway if it were installed any earlier.”

At least that means Caspar hadn’t missed a _hidden camera,_ of all things—the footage the creeps would get from it probably would have been more valuable than any amount of sneaky photographs. “Hold on, I bet there are more around here,” he realizes, jumping to his feet and nearly bowling Linhardt over. “Like in the room! No way these guys would settle for just _one_ camera.”

Linhardt finds one, inexplicably enough, in the little duck plushie he (read: Caspar) had gotten the other day, and Ashe finds one installed on the balcony sliding doors where it probably has a decent view of the entire room. Caspar nearly peels the floorboards off with his bare hands from pure agitation—how can the tiny studio apartment suddenly feel so _big?_ They try out a few more methods the Internet suggests, like closing all the lights and windows then shining a flashlight around the room to check for reflections from camera lenses, but there doesn’t seem to be any more after the first three.

“Even if we take these out, someone might still come by and place some more,” Ashe muses, turning over the mess of wires and circuits in his hands. Caspar has no idea if that’s safe, but Ashe doesn’t look like anything short of a full-body electric shock would get his attention right now anyway. “This is concerning… Don’t you know anyone who might, um. Do this?”

Caspar grabs a drawer at random and shuffles through the magazines stuffed away in there, even though he’s pretty sure no one in their right mind would put a hidden camera in a drawer. “Maybe that company from before,” Caspar grumbles. “You know, the one that did the conditioner commercial or something.”

“Shampoo,” Linhardt corrects. He’s lying horizontal on the bed, hugging his duck plushie to his chest as if consoling it for being a victim of hidden-camera.

“Shampoo.” The magazines are mostly old issues from the past few years, ones Linhardt’s photos have been in before. Out of lack of things to do, Caspar skims through the first one atop the pile. It’s thankfully not a glamour magazine, and more on the fashion side instead, as is Linhardt’s specialty—he looks a little younger on the page Caspar lands on, wearing giant gold hoop earrings and a band around his arm with a strange crest hanging off of it… the same crest on one of his favorite chokers, now that Caspar thinks about it.

There’s what looks like an interview section on the other page, but Caspar places the magazine back in the drawer… or he would have, if he doesn’t hesitate above the… thing that had been hidden under a stack of the issues.

Okay, not ‘the thing.’ Caspar’s a man. He knows what the thing is. He can say it.

Before he can stare at the thing any longer, the drawer slides shut—not slammed or shoved or anything, just Linhardt’s slender hand reaching over to push it closed. “That,” Linhardt says, yawning softly, “is none of your business, thank you.”

Ashe blinks over from where he’s taken a seat on the floor. “What is it?”

“N-N-None of my business,” Caspar sputters, taking several steps away from the drawer. Last night, had this been the same drawer Linhardt had thrown something into? Then if so… if so…

He glances back over at Linhardt, who’s returned to curled up on the bed. The duck plushie has now found home atop his head, which is absurdly adorable considering the green and yellow colors contrast horribly. “A-Anyway,” Caspar stammers, “that—that shampoo commercial. Or the one where they made you try lingerie. Or—” He pauses. “What about that one guy from Seiros? He kept trying to convince you to come back.”

“That guy…” Linhardt rolls over, collecting the duck before it can fall off. “You remember him?”

“Duh. You sounded like you hated the guy.”

Ashe leans against the wall. “You know, I’m starting to see more and more appeal in Linhardt’s earlier plan of sneaking in their office building.”

Linhardt snorts. “You know, it wouldn’t even be hard. They’re _desperate_ for me to come back. If I just pretend to show the tiniest bit of interest in signing with them again… I don’t know, maybe they’d let me have a tour of the building or something. Surely they’ve renovated within the past four-ish years.”

“And if anyone tries anything, I’ll just beat ‘em up,” Caspar adds.

“This is just getting even more convincing,” Ashe cheerfully says, staring up at the ceiling. “I’m almost beginning to think it could be feasible.”

Silence. Ashe blinks and looks away from the ceiling to face the two of them. “You… You aren’t… actually serious, right?”

Linhardt looks at Caspar. “Pancakes for dinner?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- [linhardt's magazine outfit](https://twitter.com/Dreamu_/status/1291253483891380225) by @Dreamu_ !!!!!  
> \- i am kindly asking u all to suspend ur disbeliefs because i have no idea how hidden cameras operate. [this article](https://www.hackster.io/news/teardown-of-a-hidden-spy-camera-df51af970b93) was pretty interesting though


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You subjected ice cream to drowning in coffee? How could you?”
> 
> “It’s not drowning, it’s just melting a little, look.”
> 
> “I refuse to watch a murder.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for the kudos and comments ❤ enjoy the chapter!! this one finally has more interactions between our boys

Caspar’s not sure if it’s nerves or his internal alarm clock that wakes him up, but judging by how he feels immediately restless as soon as he opens his eyes, he’s going to make a wild guess and assume it’s the first one.

Today’s the day they sneak (?) into the Seiros office building—it had been difficult finding a day when both Linhardt and Ashe would be free, but after much schedule-rearranging, they’d managed to secure a date a little over a week after the initial hidden camera discovery. There haven’t been any more afterwards—Linhardt had refused to have a security camera installed in the apartment, so Caspar had needed to shine a flashlight around the place everyday once they returned from work—which is more than a bit strange. Caspar can’t imagine the perpetrator just giving up after one attempt. Are there more cameras in even more inconspicuous hiding places?

Well, no use thinking about it if he can’t do anything about it either. As usual, he’s woken up earlier than Linhardt, so Caspar gently detaches Linhardt’s long limbs wrapped around him like he’s hugging a body pillow and rolls off the bed, stretching slightly. God, he’s starving—last night’s shoot had gone on later than scheduled, so they’d had to make do without dinner. Breakfast sounds amazing right now. Should he make another omelette, or should he try making some slightly better pancakes instead today…

Caspar meanders around the kitchen when his eyes catch sight of the cat mug sitting in one of the cabinets—it’s gotten a little dusty from disuse, since he hasn’t had the time to try experimenting with how much milk and sugar he can put in Linhardt’s coffee until the man dies of sweetness overload. But it’s just too cute _not_ to use! Yet the coffee (or the coffee-flavored milk, rather) always went to waste in the end. Linhardt truly is a formidable opponent.

He glances over at the mini-fridge. There should still be some ice cream from their latest grocery outing, shouldn’t there? In that case…

Linhardt stirs awake a few minutes later, shifting closer to the spot Caspar had been lying on just a while ago and probably soaking up the remaining warmth from it judging by how he’s burying his face in the pillow. “Morning,” Caspar calls. Linhardt absolutely hates hearing any morning be called ‘good.’

“Ugh. Why are you awake so early? Come back. It’s cold.”

It is most definitely not early, but Caspar decides against telling him that. “Come on, I made breakfast. Also, you gotta try this one! I mean, it’s probably gonna be for nothing in the end, but you should at least get the ice cream.”

Linhardt visibly perks up at the mention of ice cream. He even lifts his head off the bed a little, which is one of the hardest parts of the job. “Ice cream…?” When Caspar shields his newest experiment from view, though, Linhardt sighs and says, “Fine, fine. Let me just… mm…”

Caspar figures he’s just going to fall back asleep for a few minutes before _really_ waking up and heading to the bathroom, but instead Linhardt props himself up on his elbows and stares at Caspar again, sleepy blue eyes watching him move around the kitchen. “What is it?” Caspar asks, weakly, feeling like he’s been in this exact situation before, complete with his shirtlessness.

“Nothing,” Linhardt says, before immediately following up with, “I think we should get you an apron next time we go out, though.”

Caspar stares at him for long enough that the omelette threatens to become burnt scrambled eggs. “Ah… haha,” he laughs, at length, “to, uh, keep myself from getting burnt by oil and stuff, right?”

“Sure, among other things,” Linhardt answers dismissively. He doesn’t offer anything else so Caspar turns back to the food, desperately telling himself his face is warm from the stove.

Linhardt eventually drags himself off the bed and onto his usual seat by the counter. “I’m not that hungry,” he mutters.

“Yeah, you say that all the time, but eating two snacks a day isn’t healthy for anyone, Lin.”

“Hmph.”

“You can’t blame it on your diet either. No diet like that exists.” Caspar waves a fork around for emphasis.

“Hmph,” Linhardt says again, but there’s the tiniest upwards curve to his lips.

Caspar squints down at him, setting the omelette on a plate and sliding it onto the counter. “What’s so funny? Hey, just ‘cause I still don’t know how to make anything aside from omelettes and pancakes doesn’t mean I won’t learn! Just gotta wait ‘til Ashe is free again.”

“Just thinking.” Linhardt pokes at his food with the fork. “I like you, Caspar.”

Caspar drops the fork. “ _Hah?_ ”

“I like you.” Linhardt looks up at him, expression mildly confused. “I thought I made that obvious. Or maybe I’m just not used to having someone… care about me to this extent. It’s like having a boyfriend around, that’s all.”

“B—B—” Caspar can’t even get the _first syllable_ out. He swallows thickly, inhales, and tries again, though it’s significantly hard to feel like he’s being taken seriously when Linhardt is now focusing entirely on devouring the omelette. “Ahem. Er. Ah. I’m… glad… you think… that way, but I have to… remain professional here, Lin… hardt…”

“Are you having a stroke? Why are you talking like that?” Linhardt takes one last bite, then pushes the clean plate to the side. “Also, where’s the ice cream you mentioned?”

Caspar blinks. “Wh. What?”

“The ice cream? My surprise?” Linhardt pouts. “You just said it five minutes ago.”

 _What about what_ you _said five minutes ago!?_ Caspar wants to shout, but judging by how flippant Linhardt’s acting about the whole thing, maybe… maybe Caspar had just heard him wrong, earlier? Maybe Linhardt meant he likes Caspar as a bodyguard, or as a person, or as a friend. Not as a… you know. And surely deliberately dropping the word _boyfriend_ in there must just be Linhardt teasing again. Right, that must be it. After all, there’s no way he could have meant… _you know._ Ugh, what a headache.

And besides, even if he _did_ mean it that way, what Caspar said stands true: he has to remain professional. If he slips up and gets distracted (by his _client,_ of all things), something more disastrous than that camera flash from last time might happen. That’s the last thing Caspar wants, and not just because his job would be jeopardized.

“Right,” Caspar chokes out, “the—the ice cream. Well, it’s actually ice cream on coffee! Milky, sugary coffee with scoops of vanilla ice cream!” He pauses. “By this point, this has got to be plain sweet water by now, but try it anyway.”

Linhardt accepts the cat mug Caspar deposits before him, then makes a face. “You subjected ice cream to drowning in coffee? How could you?”

“It’s not drowning, it’s just melting a little, look.”

“I refuse to watch a murder.”

“You sure love your theatrics,” Caspar notes. Despite his words, Linhardt’s already bringing the mug closer to himself, stirring the drink to let the ice cream melt and mix with the coffee faster—Caspar doesn’t think he’s ever seen coffee so, well, _white._ “It’s called affogato,” he says cheerfully, leaning over the counter as Linhardt takes a slow, hesitant sip. “There’s still some ice cream left in the fridge, so don’t wor—”

Linhardt’s half-asleep eyes pop wide open at the first sip.

Caspar pauses. “Uh, you okay?”

“This is…” Linhardt sets the mug down on the counter, stares at it in silence, then picks it up again to peer at its contents. The little cat ears on the rim frame his mouth. “This is… _good._ ”

Caspar almost slams his fist on the counter. “No way! Are you serious!?”

Linhardt nods, once, staring down at the mug like it holds the secret to eternal life… or sweetness, as it may. “I never knew one could mix sweetness and bitterness this way,” he murmurs, blue eyes alight like a clear sky. “Astounding… Fascinating… I’m in awe of this concoction.”

Caspar mostly wants to ask how on earth the Affogato Concoction can possibly still be anywhere near bitter, but that’s not important right now. “Alright! I finally found a coffee you like!” he yells, accidentally loud enough that their neighbors probably hear him. That sounds just fine, though—this is a victory he wants everyone to know about. “I’ll make it for you as… no, not as much as you like, that’s unhealthy and you’d probably die,” Caspar says, at the expectant look on Linhardt’s face. “But often. I’ll make it for you often. Actually, you should learn how to do this on your own, it’s not really that hard!”

For a moment Linhardt doesn’t respond, just quietly sipping his coffee and staring at the counter, and Caspar assumes he’s lost in thought again. Then, softly, he speaks: “Why?”

Caspar frowns. “What’d ya mean? The coffee machine’s easy. Look, you just—”

“No,” Linhardt gently interrupts, “I meant—why do you care so much?”

That gives Caspar pause, but he’s still just as confused as earlier. “I thought we talked about this,” he says, setting the frying pan in the sink and letting the faucet run; if anything, having a bit of background noise helps keep his thoughts from running all over the place. “I care about you, Lin. More than just as a client.”

“You… do?”

“Wait, that—that sounded wrong,” Caspar stammers, waving his hands in front of him and nearly smacking Linhardt in the face with the spatula. “I mean—you know, as a friend. And I like you,” he adds, doing his best to keep his oncoming blush in check. “You’re a good person, Lin. Of course I’m going to want to keep you safe.”

Linhardt looks back down at his mug. “This isn’t about keeping me safe, though. The coffee, that is. And the breakfast. And… a lot of other things.”

“That’s—”

“I wish you _didn’t_ like me, sometimes,” Linhardt’s saying, apparently not having heard Caspar—or perhaps not having been expecting a response. “I wish you were like the rest of the ones before you. Just hate me and get it over with already.”

No matter how hard Caspar thinks, there doesn’t seem to be an appropriate reply to this. “Linhardt,” he says instead, keeping his voice steady, “why did they leave? The bodyguards before me. It can’t have been because you acted like yourself—you’re not mean to me or anything at all. Even in the beginning you were just a bit difficult, not impossible.” He swallows—is this forbidden territory? Should he be asking this? It’s a question that’s plagued Caspar since the start of this job, despite having only recently figured out the words to it. “Did you really drive them away just because you didn’t want someone shadowing you?”

As Caspar had both expected and feared, he’s only met with silence. Linhardt stirs his coffee, wrist just barely moving, and stares up at Caspar for a long few seconds. “No,” he murmurs; “not entirely.”

This is it. Caspar can feel it, the truth hanging in the air between them by a thread Linhardt is finally ready to cut. Should Caspar say something to prompt him? Should he just nod wordlessly, and gesture for Linhardt to continue? Which one would make Linhardt feel more safe and comfortable? Or should Caspar just stay silent and unmoving entirely, to trust Linhardt with whichever decision he ma—

Taylor Swift blares in the apartment. Linhardt nearly falls backwards off his seat, and Caspar makes an embarrassing little noise that sounds like a dying animal. He grabs his traitorous phone off the counter and answers without looking at the caller—there’s only one person he’d give a Taylor Swift ringtone. “ _Ashe!_ ” Caspar snarls.

“Uh, t-this is Caspar, right?” Ashe stutters. “Did I, er—are you busy or something? I can call back—”

“Ugh! No, no, it’s—it’s chill.” It is not chill in the slightest, but Caspar can’t even blame this on Ashe—one look at the clock and he knows they’re past the time they’d agreed to meet up. “Are you already there?”

“Five minutes away. I just wanted to know if Linhardt’s awake, at least?”

“Yeah, he is.” Caspar doesn’t even want to look at the guy right now, because he might just die of mortification and frustration. “Okay, we’ll get there as soon as we can. See ya.”

“I’m assuming Ashe is there,” Linhardt says. He sounds no different than usual, which is how Caspar knows he must be trying ridiculously hard to sound that way. “I’m sorry, I took a while in the bathroom. Let’s get dressed and we can go.”

Linhardt never apologizes for how long he takes in the bathroom. Or anywhere, really. Caspar sighs, throws his phone in his bag sitting on the floor nearby, and nods.

Getting into the building is almost laughably easy—Linhardt just had to throw on a nice coat, one of his many high-heeled boots, and a splash of makeup he had spent all of three seconds on, then stand outside the building and look vaguely interested. Not five minutes later, a Seiros employee came rushing over to just about drag the three of them inside.

“So this is Seiros,” Caspar mutters, feeling more than a little on edge. There’s top-notch technology everywhere he looks, and every piece of equipment _screams_ expensive. Even the security guards littered throughout the building give him condescending looks, like they recognize him as one of them, except cheaper and carrying far less guns.

“Same here,” Ashe grumbles, when Caspar relays as such to him. “I brought my camera because I have a shoot later tonight, not because I want the other photographers here to laugh behind my back. Ah,” he sighs wistfully, “how I’d love to have their models for myself…”

Caspar stares at him. “So like, steal them?”

“C-Caspar!” Ashe squeaks, but he doesn’t disagree, so Caspar guesses he’d been right.

When they’d entered, a young employee who introduced herself as Monica greeted them and offered to give them a tour, which was such an excellent opening to scour the building that Ashe had accepted for them right away (Linhardt clearly had not been paying attention). Unfortunately, they’ve gone through several floors by now and they still haven’t found a decent opening to search for any information, if only because Monica absolutely refuses to leave their side—and if Caspar’s being honest, her eyes are scarily sharp, something he notices when he pretended to peer inside a room filled with computers and her gaze followed him like a predator waiting to strike.

“So you were a model here years ago, Linhardt?” Monica chirps, hands clasped innocently behind her back. “The place has changed a lot over time, so you’ll find a lot of new things and people in here!”

Linhardt doesn’t so much as try to hide his yawn. “Mm, yes, that’s nice.”

“Her eye twitched just now,” Caspar notes in an undertone to Ashe. They’re walking slightly behind Linhardt and Monica, but not too far away that Monica wouldn’t notice if they tried to make an escape. “Hey, we might have gotten in, but it’s no use if we can’t get what we’re actually here for. Also, this lady’s really bad at giving tours, I’m seriously bored.”

Ashe sighs and crosses his arms. “I feel the same… Our best bet would be to look in that computer room from earlier, or maybe wherever they edit photos and videos. It’s more likely for the evidence we need to be there. But I have a feeling this lady—I mean, Monica won’t let us go so easily…”

“Maybe I should challenge her to a fight,” Caspar suggests. “One-on-one. Whoa, that doesn’t sound so bad. Everyone else will be distracted too, so you and Lin can go—”

“No.”

“But—”

“No.”

Caspar pouts. “You’re no fun, Ashe.”

“Monique,” Linhardt suddenly says, grabbing Caspar and Ashe’s attention, “I need to use the restroom. Do you mind bringing me to one?”

“It’s Monica,” Monica corrects cheerfully. It’s clear from one look that she had put zero effort into making her smile look at all genuine, which makes Caspar wonder why in the world they had assigned her to be a tour guide. “And of course, gladly! There’s one just nearby. You two,” she says, in a much less simpering tone, “follow.”

 _Whoa, she’s ordering us around._ Caspar clears his throat and says, as fake as possible, “Oh yeah, mhm, of course, it’s my duty as bodyguard to follow Linhardt wherever at all times—”

“Caspar, stay with Ashe,” Linhardt neatly cuts in.

“I will stay with Ashe,” Caspar confirms, doing his best to suppress a grin at the sneer on Monica’s face.

After Linhardt and Monica walk out of sight, Linhardt dragging his feet at a speed Caspar can confidently say is slower than the best sloths have to offer, Ashe hurriedly scours through the different offices on the floor—Caspar can’t make heads or tails of what room serves what function, but evidently Ashe knows what he’s doing, because he skids to a stop as soon as he opens the door to an empty storage room that had been tucked away at the end of the corridor. “Here,” Ashe whispers, while Caspar feels along the walls for the light. “There’s a laptop over there—can you keep a look out?”

“No problem.” There’s no lock on the door—or maybe there might have been at some point, but the metal is all twisted and distorted, so clearly _something_ had happened. In any case, Caspar’s forced to stand right by the door, hand on the knob and ready to bolt at a moment’s notice.

Ashe boots up the laptop sitting on a cardboard box, muttering to himself the whole while. “It isn’t dusty, though the rest of the stuff in here is… it’s still warm, even. Was it recently used?” His hands move at the speed of light, opening folders at rapid speed and hacking through several passwords until he stifles a gasp. “I f-found something! There’s a whole bunch of encrypted files in here. I’d need to figure out the password for all of them individually, though—”

Caspar peers out the small window on the door. “No one’s here yet, but even Lin can only be so slow… how about just one? See if it’s what we’re looking for?”

“O-Okay, right, I can do that.” Ashe doesn’t even blink, leaning closer and closer to the screen until he sighs in relief. “Alright, I got it. I think it might be the date these were taken or modifi— _eek!_ ”

“Eek?” Caspar looks out again, sees no one of interest, then hurries over to Ashe and peers over his shoulder at the laptop screen. “What’s so surpri—holy shit!”

It’s a photo of someone Caspar vaguely recognizes from some of Linhardt’s magazines—a model working with the Golden Deer agency, if he’s not mistaken. He can’t remember her name, but this is definitely a picture taken from a hidden camera somewhere in her bathroom, considering she’s _taking a shower_ and _completely fucking naked._ Not for the first time, Caspar is extremely glad boobs are the last thing on his mind at the moment, although Ashe is blushing to the roots of his hair. “This. This is…”

“She’s from the Golden Deer,” Ashe squeaks out. He fumbles to close the photo, but his hand is shaking so badly, the cursor keeps leaping all over the screen. “The rest of these—The rest of these might be—”

Caspar senses it the moment before it happens—he rushes to the door just as it swings open, though it thankfully doesn’t smack into his face, something he’s unfortunately done to other people plenty of times before. “Oh, hello there!” Monica smiles, tilting her head just so. Behind her, Linhardt sighs and shrugs apologetically. “What are you two doing here? This storage room isn’t part of the tour!”

Caspar expertly moves to keep Ashe behind his back, suddenly extremely thankful for his broad shoulders, which until now had mostly just served as Linhardt’s improvised clothes hangers. “We thought we saw a… roach run in here!” he says. He’s been told he’s not the best at lying, but he literally has no other choice right now, not when Monica is smiling like she’s got a knife behind her back. “And, uh, we didn’t want to, you know, just let that thing run around and infest the place. So we followed it here. We lost it, though. Sorry. Guess you guys will just have to hire an actual roach killer.”

“Ah, is that so?” Monica is _still_ smiling. Caspar hopes her face muscles hurt from the strain. “Well then, where’s your other friend? The photographer, I believe? We can’t move on without him!”

“He’s—uh—he’s—”

“Oh, _there_ he is!” Monica slips past Caspar, and Caspar restrains himself from grabbing her arm when Linhardt frantically shakes his head no. Great—has Linhardt given up, too? Caspar turns around, preparing himself for… for…

Okay, he’s not even sure what he’d been preparing himself for. But it doesn’t matter now, because the laptop is nowhere in sight and Ashe is smiling and nodding along to whatever Monica is saying. Caspar opens his mouth, ready to ask if he had just dreamt all this up and he’ll wake up in a few seconds to realize that it’s still morning and Linhardt’s hair is in his mouth, but Linhardt steps inside the room to tug at his sleeve and shake his head again while Monica isn’t looking.

“Just smile and nod,” Linhardt hisses, which, now that Caspar thinks about it, really is sound advice.

They smile and nod the rest of the way through the tour (or at least Caspar and Ashe do—Linhardt makes no such effort), and eventually they manage to leave, Monica waving bye behind them and Linhardt spouting empty promises to return soon and give the agency some thought and blah-blah-blah. “Finally,” he grumbles, as soon as they step out of the building. “What a complete nightmare. That tour was just a two-hour montage of all the things I hate about capitalism.”

“There are many things to hate about capitalism,” Ashe agrees.

Caspar’s about to agree as well, although verbally this time because his head actually hurts from all the smiling and nodding, when he whirls on Ashe and grabs him by the shoulders. “The laptop!” he very nearly shouts. “What did you—Did I just completely imagine that or something?”

Ashe grins sheepishly. “Not your imagination. Look.” And he fishes out an entire laptop from the inside of his coat like it’s nothing more than a magician’s party trick.

Caspar is sure his jaw is touching concrete right now. “No way. What did you… How did you…?”

“We passed through a metal detector,” Linhardt points out, sounding just as astounded. “How did you sneak that through? Ashe, what on earth are you hiding from us?”

“C-Come on, I’m not hiding anything! These are just… trade secrets,” Ashe says, laughing nervously and not at all believably. He slips the laptop back in his coat, and no matter how closely Caspar tries to follow the movement, he has no idea how Ashe holds onto it while keeping it hidden. “More importantly, the files on these might help with finding out what Seiros is doing,” he says, tone serious. “I can’t hack into these on my own, though, but I might know a person.”

Linhardt hums thoughtfully. “Ah, yes. You’re talking about him, aren’t you?”

At Ashe’s nod, Caspar looks between the two of them—Linhardt has a knowing little smile on his face, and a blush is beginning to creep up Ashe’s cheeks. “What?” Caspar demands. “Who’s this ‘him,’ Lin? Ashe? Either of you?”

“Just… a friend,” Ashe mumbles out, face now completely aflame. “He doesn’t live too far from here, and he shouldn’t be too busy right now. Let’s go ask for his help.”

As it turns out, Ashe’s ‘friend’ is none other than a freelance model living in a modest loft apartment (though it looks extravagant compared to Linhardt’s living conditions) just a bus stop away from the Seiros building. “Apologies, darlings,” Yuri Leclerc drawls, daintily applying what looks like purple eyeshadow and barely even looking at them from his magnifying mirror. “I’ve a shoot later, can’t afford to waste time. What is it you need?”

Ashe clears his throat. “Uh, Yuri, we’re not clients. I need you to do something illegal.”

Just like that, Yuri finishes his makeup off with a flourish and looks up at Ashe standing next to him, grinning wickedly. “Well, why didn’t you just say so!” he remarks, haughty facade there and gone in an instant. “How illegal is it, dove? Robbery? Arson? Just say the word. I’m always down for a felony!”

“He’s your antithesis,” Linhardt comments. Caspar’s inclined to agree.

“N-Nothing on that scale,” Ashe replies, cheeks rapidly growing pinker the longer he looks down at Yuri’s smile. “Just, um, uh—these files, they’re encrypted, and we were hoping to find out—uh, I’m not making sense, but do you know what I mean?”

Yuri taps his chin with the handle of his makeup brush. “So a bit of hacking? Hmph, I’m a little disappointed. It’s been a while since I’ve been propositioned so promisingly like that. But since it’s you, dove, I suppose I’ll just have to say yes.” He reaches in Ashe’s coat and pulls the laptop out easily—Caspar’s eyes feel ready to bulge out of his skull. Ashe looks the same, though probably for different reasons. “But won’t you introduce me to your friends over there?”

“R-Right!” Ashe motions for Linhardt and Caspar to come closer, and after sharing a skeptical look, they finally move from the entryway to stand in front of Yuri. “This is Linhardt and Caspar. I’m sure you’ve heard of Linhardt, since you’re fellow models, and Caspar is Linhardt’s bodyguard. We’re doing this to help Linhardt out, since he’s being stalked or something.”

Yuri raises a perfect eyebrow, giving Linhardt an assessing once-over before nodding. “Yeah, I know you,” he says, voice dipping into a more dangerous tone. “See your face all over the magazines I’m in. Kinda hard not to recognize you by this point.”

“Um… that’s nice,” Linhardt says, looking politely confused. “Thanks for your help, Yuri. Appreciate it.”

“I didn’t even—” Yuri sighs. “Okay, but I can’t do this for free, Ashe. You know what I want.”

Ashe swallows nervously. “I don’t have cash right now, but I can—”

“Silly, I meant something else.” Yuri’s grin morphs into a smirk, and he leans back to brush his hand against Ashe’s in a very deliberate motion. “Why don’t you stay here for the night, dove? It’s not like _I_ can get through all this by myself. What say you help me out too if you’re not busy?”

Ashe looks ready to pass out. “I… That’s… O-Of course! Yeah! I can do that. Of course, Yuri. Um, l-let me just… I also have a shoot later, but definitely…”

“No rush, no rush. I’ll be busy for the rest of the day too,” Yuri says, turning back to the laptop. “I’ll text when I’m done. Don’t be late, alright?”

As soon as they step outside, Ashe leans against a nearby lamp post and sighs so heavily, Caspar thinks a part of his soul had floated out into the air. “Uh, you good, dude?” he asks.

“He’s yearning, let him be,” Linhardt mutters, yawning.

“I am not—” Ashe crosses his arms with a huff, then turns to Caspar. “Anyway, will it be fine to have Yuri hold on to the laptop for now? No one would suspect him of having it anyway—even if he did work with Seiros once or twice, he’s worked with pretty much all model agencies in the area once or twice before too.”

“Yeah, of course it’s cool!” Caspar had thanked Yuri for his help too, but Yuri had just nodded distractedly at him, still squinting at Linhardt like he was some sort of threat. “He sure acted weird with Lin, though.”

“Oh, that…” Ashe coughs. “He’s a bit… competitive, that’s all. I keep telling him he doesn’t have to be, though! He’s pretty as he is. His makeup is always so perfect, he takes such good care of himself, and I’ve personally witnessed his skincare routine once. I think he used ten different brands and the blood of a young goat.”

For some reason, Caspar feels compelled to say something about Linhardt, but he draws a complete blank no matter how hard he thinks. “Lin… woke up like this,” he ends up saying.

Linhardt, for his part, doesn’t seem to have heard anything they said. “There’s a good Japanese place near here,” he remarks. “Want to get some lunch?”

Ashe has his shoot afterwards, which he needs to take the train for—thankfully, Linhardt’s free for the rest of the day, so as soon as they return to their apartment, he flops onto his bed and pulls out his phone. “Ugh, these annoying emails,” he grumbles, flicking through and archiving them after one glance at the subject titles. “I wonder when some of these idiots will ever give up. Do they think I’ll go back on my word just because they added another zero to the paycheck?”

“Well, money makes the world go round,” Caspar says, sitting on the edge of the bed as soon as he undoes his shoes. “Aren’t you glad though, Lin? We found real hard evidence! Soon enough we can sue Seiros or whatever and you’ll be safe for good!”

“I suppose,” Linhardt says, turning to lie on his back so Caspar can see his little smile. But it fades quickly when his expression turns thoughtful. “What then, though?”

“What then…?”

“Afterwards, what will you do?” Linhardt stares up at him, his eyes two dark pools of the ocean depths. “You were originally hired because of the stalking and hatemail, both of which should stop after this. So what then? You’ll leave, won’t you?”

“That’s…” Caspar frowns. He hadn’t thought about that… or, well, he _did,_ but he’s never been forced to face the question he’s been asking himself for some time. “I don’t know. What do you want, Linhardt? You’re the one who said you didn’t need a bodyguard. If you want me to leave—”

“I don’t.”

“…Okay,” Caspar says, blinking, “that was easy. I guess that settles it?”

Linhardt’s silent for a few seconds before, to Caspar’s surprise, he sits up and rests his chin atop his knees. “I don’t want you to leave, but I don’t want to force you to stay either,” he murmurs. “I know you said you’re doing this because you want to, not just because it’s your job, but… I’ll let you decide.” He’s twisting the rings around his fingers again, over and over, the motions rhythmic and almost hypnotic.

There’s no real need for Caspar to think it over—he decided a long time ago, really—but he doesn’t answer right away all the same. “Earlier this morning,” Caspar awkwardly starts, “you were going to say something. I think. About, uh, your previous bodyguards.”

Linhardt sighs. “I wish you’d forgotten about that.”

“I can pretend to forget, if you want.”

“No need.” Linhardt sits up, though not before fluffing his pillows so he can lean against them. “You’re right. If I had been my normal self, maybe they wouldn’t have left so quickly. But I drove the last four away by being as terrible as possible. That’s it, really.”

“I thought so,” Caspar says thoughtfully. “You don’t look like you could be a bad person if you tried.” Linhardt sputters, possibly to protest, but the rest of his words catch up to Caspar’s head and he frowns. “Wait, didn’t you have five bodyguards before me?”

“Yes.”

“So, uh… what happened to him? Her? Them?”

Linhardt twists one of his rings hard enough that his skin folds under the pressure. “Him,” he says. “I fell in love with him.”

Caspar almost falls off the bed. “Whoa, uh, _what?_ ” That had been the absolute _last_ thing he was expecting. Maybe something sort of scandalous, sure, but… “Who, uh. What was this person like?”

“His name was Byleth.” Linhardt stares down at his rings for a long time, so Caspar does the same—they seem to be two complete sets, three on each hand, alternating blue and green gemstones. Emeralds and sapphires, Linhardt had mentioned, once, in an off-hand comment to Dorothea during the fashion show. “He was a good bodyguard. A lot like you, although much quieter.”

Caspar huffs. “Are you telling me to be quiet _now,_ Lin? It’s a little late for that.”

“Nothing like that,” Linhardt says, laughing under his breath, which Caspar decides to take as a good sign. “He did his job well. He was always looking out for me, but… not in the same way as you. He didn’t make me breakfast everyday or try to figure out how to make me enjoy coffee. To him, I was just another job.” Linhardt shrugs. “I didn’t mind. I liked having him to myself. You see these rings?” He lifts both his hands up, and the gemstones catch under the light. “I was doing a photo shoot with them, and it was Byleth who said the colors of the gems remind him of me. So I bought them all.”

It must be nice to have enough money to buy six rings that look like they cost as much as Caspar’s entire house. “They do look nice on you,” he says, weakly, in the hopes that he’s at least doing something better than this Byleth person by complimenting Linhardt. It certainly doesn’t sound like Byleth had done that.

“Thanks,” Linhardt says, not sounding thankful in the least, just indifferent.

“So, uh. What happened, then? He sounds like a nice guy.”

Linhardt shrugs. “I made a mistake. I confessed.”

“Oh.” It doesn’t so bad at first, but then Caspar tries to imagine if _he_ confessed to Linhardt, and has to hide a flinch at the mental image. “I… see.”

“Obviously he didn’t feel the same.” Linhardt says all this like it’s something that happened to someone else, his voice distant and detached, but his trembling hands and twisting fingers do all the talking for him. “And obviously I was miserable for a few days. Then I got mad. I don’t even remember why—it seems so silly now, to be angry at someone for not returning your feelings. I threw his things at him and told him to leave, but I think I just wanted to hear him say he wanted to stay.” Linhardt pauses. “Obviously he didn’t. He just stood there and went ‘okay, I’ll leave whenever you want,’ and—I just—”

He’s quiet for another moment, and Caspar doesn’t know if it’d be appropriate to comfort him or to just sit there and wait, but eventually Linhardt speaks again. “That’s why,” he mumbles, “I don’t want to make another mistake with you. Leave or stay. You decide.”

Caspar swallows and musters the courage to lay his hand atop Linhardt’s, still twisting his rings until his skin is beginning to redden. “Quit it,” he says, softly. “You’ll hurt yourself.”

Linhardt opens his mouth, perhaps to explain himself, perhaps to scold Caspar for avoiding the question, but eventually he just stays quiet and drops his hands atop his lap.

“I just think it’s real silly of you to think I _wouldn’t_ want to stay,” Caspar says, when it looks like Linhardt has stared at his blankets for long enough. Linhardt looks up so fast his neck will probably hurt for a little while later, but Caspar doesn’t let him talk first. “Like, come on. I’ve stayed this long. Unless you want me to leave… No, even if you want me to leave, I’ll stay, Lin.” Caspar sighs. “I promise.”

 _You say that so easily,_ Linhardt had said, once. _Promise._ But Caspar is a man of his word, and he’s never gone back on a promise before, not once. For as long as Linhardt needs him, Caspar will stay by his side. He won’t let himself be driven away so easily like the rest of those bodyguards, and he won’t stand in place and agree to everything Linhardt says like the very first one. He wants to be different. He wants to be something… more.

Oh, shit. Not now. Caspar shakes the feelings away until he can more or less function without them. _Not now._ He has to remain professional, damn it! Blood in the brain, not in the dick, come on!

…is what he’d tell himself if he weren’t certain the blood is in his heart right now.

“You will?” Linhardt mumbles.

He’s staring at his rings still, and for some reason that annoys Caspar more than anything. Caspar takes Linhardt’s hand in his again, tugging just enough to get Linhardt to finally tear his gaze away from his rings and look at Caspar. “I will,” Caspar says, “but only if you get rid of those.”

Linhardt looks aghast. “The rings? I can’t just throw them away, they cost thousands.”

Without any thinking whatsoever, Caspar confidently declares, “I don’t care if you throw them away or give them away or whatever them away. I’ll just buy you a better one.”

Linhardt opens his mouth, closes it, then stares at Caspar for an extremely long time. It takes a dark blush on his cheeks for Caspar to realize exactly how wrong those words had sounded. “Oh, God,” is the first thing he says, immediately followed by, “I didn’t mean that. I mean, I didn’t mean it in _that_ way. Holy shit. I’m so sorry. Lin, I—”

“It—It’s alright, don’t apologize, I… know what you mean,” Linhardt stammers, even if he can’t seem to stop _blushing._ Caspar’s never seen Linhardt this… well… _red_ before, including the few times he made the effort of applying blush makeup. It’s probably because Linhardt doesn’t get embarrassed easily, but when he _does,_ his skin is so pale that any little flush makes him look like a tomato, green hair and all. “I, hm, well. I do like men who are forward, though, I must admit.”

Caspar does his absolute best to wave the comment away. “T-That—haha—” It’s probably worst that Linhardt wears his rings on his index, middle, and little fingers, leaving his ring fingers bare for… _agh,_ don’t think about that, don’t think about that!

Linhardt’s eyes narrow, and suddenly he’s weaving their fingers together—Caspar hadn’t even been aware his hand was still atop Linhardt’s—and pushing Caspar down onto the bed. Normally Caspar would be able to fend him off, or at least keep his balance, but the surprise that comes with _Linhardt_ doing this stuns him long enough that Linhardt is already straddling him by the time Caspar realizes what’s going on. “W-What—What—Lin, you—”

“Did you mean it, though?” Linhardt asks, soft and low. His hair falls down to frame either side of his face like wavy green curtains. “You’d buy me something better than all these combined?”

Those had most certainly not been Caspar’s exact words, but after a moment’s thought, he nods. “They’re nice, but they’re not _that_ nice,” Caspar says, grinning slightly. “You’re the one who bought these for yourself, right? Not the Byleth guy? Trust me, things people buy for you always end up better than things you bought on your own. So no matter what, I won’t fail!”

Linhardt hums, dragging a finger down the side of Caspar’s face, eventually tilting his chin upwards. Caspar doesn’t try to fight him—it’s the absolute last thing he wants to do right now. “Uh,” Caspar says, voice threatening to crack, “what are you—”

“Quiet,” Linhardt says, in that decisive, authoritative voice that sends shivers down Caspar’s spine. It’s the tone he adopts whenever he wants something (or someone) to go his way, and so far it’s never failed. Caspar doesn’t feel like breaking that record, not when… well… not when Linhardt just sounds so unfairly, unbelievably _hot_ when he talks that way. It doesn’t help that Linhardt is staring right into his eyes, and no matter how badly Caspar wants to look away, he can’t bring himself to—he has a feeling Linhardt will only demand him to look at him if Caspar tries to look anywhere else, and Caspar doesn’t think hearing Linhardt speak _like that_ is healthy for him.

The makeup Linhardt had spent three seconds on this morning is a lot more lethal up close. Caspar doesn’t know if he should focus on the dark eyeliner, or the darker lipstick, or the darkest part of Linhardt’s eyes, that captivating ocean-blue.

“Caspar.” Linhardt’s voice hasn’t changed, and Caspar has to pray to whichever god is listening that he isn’t going to have a Situation right now. “Do you like me?”

Okay, thank goodness, a fairly easy question. “‘Course I do,” Caspar says, glad his voice doesn’t tremble like basically the rest of his body. “You’re a good frie—”

“Do not even dare finish that word.” Linhardt leans closer. “I’ll ask you again, and this time I want a proper answer. Do you like me or not, Caspar?”

 _Oh, shit, oh, shit, oh shit oh shit oh shit._ Caspar’s been called a little… dense when it comes to stuff like _these,_ even if he’s usually pretty smart with just about everything else. Why on earth does he have to be a total idiot when it comes to this!? He has no idea what to say right now! ‘Yeah, I like you enough that I jerked off to you that one time and maybe a few other times afterwards?’ ‘Yeah, I like you enough that I want to stay by your side and buy you rings for your ring finger only?’ ‘Yeah, I like you, but this is inappropriate, you’re a client and I’m a bodyguard, we are _not_ allowed to be in a relationship and I have to remain professional, for the love of God?’

Before Caspar can decide on either of those choices or make up a new one entirely, the bed vibrates—Linhardt blinks, and for a long moment he looks torn between ignoring what must have been a phone notification and staying like this. Caspar genuinely doesn’t know which option sounds better at the moment.

The bed vibrates again. And again. And again. It’s a call.

With an uncharacteristic snarl, Linhardt gets off of Caspar and shuffles over to the far end of the bed, where he had apparently tossed his phone towards earlier. “Fuck you,” he grumbles, “fuck you, fuck you, fuck you.” Then he answers it. “Why do you have this number? Go away. The renovations in the building were awful. I’m not interested. Bye.” And he hangs up, which officially makes that the shortest, most one-sided phone conversation Caspar’s ever witnessed in his life.

“Uh,” Caspar says, after a lengthy pause, “who was that? A client?”

“Someone from Seiros,” Linhardt says, flicking through what looks like yet more emails. “Did they get their hopes up because I visited _once?_ If I had been considering returning to them even the slightest bit, that consideration is gone now. Fuck! I hate them.”

Wow. Caspar’s never heard Linhardt curse this much in quick succession. “Well, um… I’m… glad? Yeah, you, uh, you show ‘em, Lin.”

Linhardt looks at him, expression indiscernible. Caspar braces himself for what he suspects will leave Linhardt’s mouth next— _You didn’t answer my question_ —but instead Linhardt only says, “I’m thirsty. Let’s get milk tea.”

“You had ice cream this morni—”

“That wasn’t pure ice cream. Let’s get milk tea.”

Caspar sighs—he’s usually the stubborn one in friendships, but Linhardt has him totally beat in that one. “Okay, okay, milk tea. Will you get me a popsicle like last time?”

“You can get a different flavor, if you like.”

Milk tea and popsicles aside, Caspar didn’t answer the question, and he highly doubts Linhardt has forgotten about it—most likely he’s just waiting for a better time to ask again, possibly later tonight when they’re both in bed. God, in bed _together._ Two adult men usually don’t sleep in the same bed unless they’re either together or into each other! Why is Caspar such an idiot when it comes to these things? And what is he going to _say_ later?

No, no—he can’t confess. He _can’t._ He can’t just up and tell Linhardt that the last time Caspar touched himself, he hadn’t even thought about Linhardt sucking him off or anything like that—no, he’d thought about Linhardt whispering his name, telling him how much he _loves_ him, and Caspar had gone completely crazy in the bathroom at three in the morning. He has to be professional. He has to.

But… just, what if, hypothetically, on the off chance… if Linhardt likes him _back…_

Caspar has probably never looked so miserable while eating a popsicle before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it didnt happen here but have [naked apron caspar](https://twitter.com/dctr_spoiler/status/1295728209921634305) by alt anyway, as part of linhardt's imagination 🍑🍑
> 
> next chapter will probably be the last or second-to-last! (and will hopefully be smutty :-))


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Aren’t you gonna sleep?”
> 
> Linhardt looks at Caspar like he’s never heard a more ridiculous question in his life. “Of course I will. When I want to.” He shifts around to reveal his phone screen, and Caspar supposes he should be a little less surprised to see what looks like _Buzzfeed Unsolved_ playing on it. “This is more interesting right now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the last chapter!!! i wrote like 7/8 of this in one go and i am this close to collapsing lol. but anyway, hope you enjoy the Spice!!

“Aren’t you gonna sleep?”

Linhardt looks at Caspar like he’s never heard a more ridiculous question in his life. “Of course I will. When I want to.” He shifts around to reveal his phone screen, and Caspar supposes he should be a little less surprised to see what looks like _Buzzfeed Unsolved_ playing on it. “This is more interesting right now.”

Caspar pulls on a loose shirt and flicks off the lights before clambering into bed next to him. “What’s it about?”

“No idea. This is my fourteenth episode today. Let’s find out.”

Caspar ends up falling asleep first, for once—he thoroughly estimated just how exhausted he is after the events of today—but he stirs awake at one point in the night. Linhardt’s plugged his phone in the charger and is fast asleep now, arms wrapped around Caspar’s middle as usual, his duck plushie resting beside his head. It’s hard to turn around and look at Linhardt’s face in this position (Caspar definitely never would’ve thought he’d be the little spoon with Linhardt), but he does his best anyway, ignoring the crick in his neck.

Linhardt’s face is calm, serene. The faint light filtering in through the balcony curtains slants across his cheeks, pale skin melting into silver. _Pretty,_ Caspar thinks, but it doesn’t quite encapsulate everything Linhardt is.

He’s so beautiful it hurts—like how looking at a flower feels like, admiring something so ethereal and yet temporary. Caspar had promised he’d stay, yes, but only for as long as he thinks would benefit both of them. If— _when_ —his staying becomes a problem, Caspar will have to leave whether he likes it or not. How long will this… thing… between him and Linhardt last? How long until he’ll never get to make him breakfast again, go grocery shopping with him again, lie so close together again? How long will Caspar be able to see Linhardt like this, asleep and unburdened by all the troubles of the waking world?

This deep, insightful monologue of his is, predictably, interrupted by Linhardt’s hands, which had previously been dangling over his stomach, sliding somewhere extremely inappropriate.

Caspar nearly falls off the bed entirely when he feels those hands, all long, slender fingers, reaching up to not-so-subtly fondle his chest. Okay, maybe not _fondle,_ since Linhardt’s deep, even breathing hasn’t changed to signify his wakefulness, but the way he’s touching Caspar is almost definitely not how he would touch his, say, pillow or something. “Lin?” Caspar whispers, to check if he’s actually awake, but there’s no response. Of course. Since when has Linhardt ever woken up from a _whisper?_

Linhardt stills for a moment, and Caspar dearly hopes that means this is the end of… _whatever_ is happening right now, but instead Linhardt just mumbles something in his sleep and buries his face deeper against Caspar’s neck, hot breath fanning across his skin, while his fingertips nudge at one of—oh Lord—Caspar’s nipples. Caspar feels every nerve ending in his body simultaneously scream and explode. The shirt he’s wearing is both loose and thin—he can feel Linhardt’s immaculately-manicured nails against his skin, and he has no idea whether he likes it or not.

Who is he kidding? He himself may not like it, but his body certainly does, if the way he can feel his nipples hardening under Linhardt’s touch is any indication. “Lin,” Caspar says again, a little louder and a little more strained. “Hey, you awake? Hello? Come on, wake up.”

Still nothing. Caspar supposes he should have expected this—Linhardt either wakes up on his own or requires half an hour of shouting and pulling the blankets off before he’ll open his eyes (and even then, there’s an 80 percent chance he’ll just go straight back to sleep). But Linhardt’s hands are still moving like they’re the only part of his body awake, lightly pressing and squeezing and… Caspar shudders at a sudden twitch of his fingers. No way. This can’t be happening. Can it? Is Linhardt having a really weird dream right now or something?

 _Maybe he’s dreaming of exactly this,_ a traitorous voice in Caspar’s head suggests. _Maybe he wants to do this to you… wants you to do this to him…_

No no no no no. Despite one side of his brain desperately telling him to lie still and let Linhardt continue with his… touching, Caspar wriggles and squirms until he turns around to face Linhardt, who is decidedly still somehow asleep. “Lin. Linhardt. Lin!”

Linhardt’s eyes twitch, then blink blearily open, his hands still splayed out atop Caspar’s chest. “Caspar…?”

Now that Caspar gets a better look at him, it’s clear his earlier assumption had been right, or at least somewhere close—Linhardt’s cheeks are dusted with pink, and something in his half-asleep gaze seems different from usual. “You were… Were you having a weird dream?” Caspar asks, deciding to let him keep his dignity. “You were moving around a lot.”

“I don’t…” Linhardt blinks again, slower this time, and Caspar just about sees realization dawn on his face. “Ah. I… hm. That was… h-hm.”

He’s definitely embarrassed right now, and it’s adorable. “Okay, just wanted to make sure you were alright,” Caspar says, suppressing a grin. He’s still a bit… worked up right now, but it’s dark enough that Linhardt probably won’t notice. He’ll just have to face away from Linhardt right after this, obviously. “Go back to sleep. Tomorrow—”

Caspar freezes.

Something’s off. He doesn’t know what, exactly, but the room suddenly feels _strange,_ like there’s something here that shouldn’t be. “Stay here,” he murmurs—Linhardt nods, evidently catching on to Caspar’s serious tone.

The apartment is tiny—there’s virtually nowhere to hide, except for behind the counter or in the bathroom, both areas outside of Caspar’s immediate line of sight. He slips off the bed as silently as possible while Linhardt sits up, pressing his back against the corner of the wall. _The stalker,_ Caspar realizes—could they be back in the middle of the night, trying to install more cameras? The balcony doors are firmly shut, but closing them carefully doesn’t produce much noise either.

Caspar checks behind the counter first, squinting in the dark—nothing. The cabinets aren’t big enough for someone to be able to hide in unless they fold themselves in half. He doubles back to the bed, torn between staying here and making sure no one goes near Linhardt or venturing into the bathroom and leaving Linhardt defenseless against a hypothetical accomplice hiding in wait on the balcony or in the shadows. Damn it, how could Caspar have let his guard down enough for someone to have broken in—!?

And then he hears it—the slightest, softest _thump_ from the bathroom, just barely audible even in the dead silence.

Linhardt’s hand shoots out to grab Caspar’s wrist in an iron grip. “Don’t,” he bites out, voice hushed. “Just—Just—The police—”

Caspar shakes his head. “They’d take too long. Lin, I’ll be fine, okay? Let me handle this.”

“But…” Linhardt trails off, and Caspar gives him one last reassuring nod before Linhardt lets his hand drop back to his lap.

Caspar doesn’t have a gun right now—Linhardt had vehemently refused to have one in his apartment, way back when all this stalking business had been little more than anonymous hatemail—so he makes do with a nearby kitchen knife that had been sitting in the sink instead. If anything, he’s just glad he doesn’t have to do this with a hard-on, considering what had just been happening some five minutes ago. Carefully, soundlessly, he pads over to the bathroom door, closed shut—had they closed it a while ago?—and keeps a hand on the door. It swings outwards, so if whoever is inside tries to leave, he can buy himself a bit of time.

Another faint _thump._ Are they trying to tear the place apart or something? At least he knows there’s no possible escape route in there, unless they dig a hole in the floor and escape down to the unit below. Which, Caspar thinks with a scowl, isn’t impossible.

It’s silent behind the door now. Frowning, he leans closer, straining his ears for the softest sound, the tiniest hint of what they could be doing—

Only to jump back and slam against the wall behind him when the tip of a knife protrudes from the door. “ _Shit,_ ” he hisses—the knife had nicked his hand, but he waves the sting of pain away to make a dive for the narrow corridor separating the bathroom from the rest of the apartment. “Quit hiding and show yourself!” Caspar shouts.

“You,” a strangely familiar voice growls, “are such a _damn_ pain in the ass.” Then, stepping out from behind the bathroom door, is someone… someone…

Someone Caspar _knows._ “You…” His mind blanks out for a precious few seconds. Her red hair is orange now, but… “You’re the one from a while ago, from Seiros! Mo… Mo… Molly?”

“It’s _Monica, damn it!_ ” Monica shrieks, probably waking up everyone else on the floor. Moonlight glints off the knife in her hand, its edge stained red with Caspar’s blood. “Well, my real name’s Kronya. It doesn’t really matter now, though.”

“What are you—” Caspar narrows his eyes. There’s a small bag slung around Monica’s—Kronya’s— _whatever,_ her body, and he can see what looks like a wire sticking out of an opened pocket. “You! Were you the one who planted those hidden cameras? And sent the hatemail?”

Kronya grins, twirling her knife in hand. It’s serrated, Caspar realizes, and therefore a whole lot more dangerous than the kitchen knife he’s armed himself with. He _knew_ he should have tried to convince Linhardt more about the guns thing, if only to have some leverage. “Obviously! I would’ve thought me _being here_ made that _quite_ clear.”

She darts forward, faster than Caspar expected, and slashes at his neck—he manages to avoid the strike, though he stumbles on some books Linhardt left lying around on the floor and nearly cracks his skull on the edge of a desk behind him. He gropes blindly around in the dark and somehow grabs hold of Kronya’s ankle, sending her toppling face-first on the floor before she would have lunged for the bed, where Linhardt is still curled atop of, looking paralyzed. “ _Fuck—_ let go, bastard! Do you want a knife up your shithole that bad!?”

She sounds so much like the hatemail letters Caspar had read those months ago that his head spins, though he’s not sure if that’s from the realization or the fact that Kronya’s kicking him in the face. He lets go of her, but only to drive the kitchen knife into her leg before she can pull away—she screams, now probably waking up everyone on the floors above and below them, and twists around with a terrifying snarl on her face. “You have pissed me off for the _last_ time, himbo,” she hisses.

“Himbo?” Caspar can’t help but repeat incredulously. Did she run out of insults already?

Kronya grabs something off the nearby desk and raises it over her head, and— _oh, no, not the giant table lamp,_ Caspar frets. The lamp had been _expensive._ He scrabbles to get out of the way, reaching up to try and wrestle the lamp out of her grip before she can smash it, but _fuck,_ she’s fast—

“ _No!_ ” someone shouts, and it takes Caspar a second to realize it’s _Linhardt_ —he doesn’t think he’s ever heard Linhardt raise his voice that loud. Kronya falters in surprise, which is all the time Linhardt needs to—holy shit—jump on her back and bring the both of them crashing down to the floor.

“Jesus _fucking_ Christ!” Kronya yowls, which sums up Caspar’s feelings pretty well too. She shoves Linhardt off of her and Caspar scrambles to catch him before he hits his head on the corner of a desk—Linhardt stumbles into his arms, head against his chest. Not really how Caspar wanted to have Linhardt in his arms, but at least he’s alright. “You just can’t make this easy for me, can you?”

Caspar opens his mouth, despite not being sure how exactly he’s supposed to respond to that, but Linhardt beats him to it and snaps, “Get out of here.”

“Oh?” Kronya grins, moonlight glinting off her teeth. “Aww, did little Linny man up so soon? I liked it better when you were crying over a camera flash!”

“It—It was you, back then?” Caspar asks, even though he already knows the answer. “On that rainy day… outside the apartment…”

“Of _course_ it was me.” Kronya lifts her arms in a what-can-you-do shrug. “I don’t know _why_ they assigned me to you, but you should be thanking me I waited this long before moving on from the hatemail to actual spying and all. I think I was just having waaay too much fun thinking up new insults. But your reactions were always so boring, Linhardt! Couldn’t you have at least pretended to be a _little_ scared for my sake—”

Her voice is starting to grate on Caspar’s ears. He lifts Linhardt up a bit, deposits him at the side, and delivers a swift punch to her gut that she’s too distracted to avoid. With a howl of pain, she crumples to her knees, and Caspar folds her arms behind her back before she can retaliate, probably with a knife to the eye. “Lin!” he calls. “Got any rope or something? To keep her hands together?”

Linhardt squints at him. “Not rope, but it should work.” He digs through his cluttered drawers, Caspar struggling to keep Kronya from slipping out of his hold, then hands Caspar something distinctly… metallic.

“Here,” Linhardt says, like having a pair of handcuffs in his apartment is no big deal.

“Why do you…” Caspar stares down at the thing. In the darkness, he’s not sure if they’re real police handcuffs or… something else entirely, but he supposes they’ll have to do. “Okay, whatever, thanks.” He clasps them around Kronya’s wrists, narrowly avoiding getting his ear bitten off, and accepts _another_ pair of handcuffs from Linhardt for her ankles. Why does Linhardt even have _two_ of these things? Maybe one is understandable, but _two?_

Kronya tugs at the restraints for several long seconds before sighing and slumping against the wall. “Fuck it,” she growls. The kitchen knife is still embedded in her leg, and a puddle of blood is slowly growing under her foot. “Whatever. I don’t even care anymore. Shit.”

“Would you mind explaining everything now?” Linhardt asks, tilting his chin up in that haughty facade Caspar has grown used to seeing. He’s almost certainly terrified, but it’s difficult to tell in such little lighting. “When I was still with Seiros, I never heard of them sinking to such… acts.”

“Psh. Seiros? _Please._ It was just a cover for us, alright?” Kronya rolls her eyes. “I don’t know the specifics, but when the former CEO retired—”

“The dragon boxer?”

“Ugh. Yes. Her. When she retired, _my_ boss took over.” She almost sounds proud. “We did the bare minimum to keep the agency afloat, but the _real_ cash comes from people like you.”

Caspar pauses from where he’s standing by the bathroom doorway, the flashlight on his phone blinking steadily. “People like… him?”

“You know! People whose apartments I can break into and plant hidden cameras in! People who leave their balconies open so I can sneak good pictures of ‘em!” Kronya’s grin widens to a frankly terrifying size. Even from where he is Caspar can see Linhardt hesitating, more confusion than arrogance in his frame now. “We’ve raked in so much money, it’s insane. You guys are serious idiots for not doing this earlier. Now if you could just hand over the laptop you _stole_ from us and let me go…”

“Alright, that’s enough out of you.” Caspar heads back over to Kronya’s side, pocketing his phone. “Thanks for the testimony, by the way.”

“Testimony? Who’s gonna believe _you?_ ” Kronya sneers, which is more than a little bit offensive. What’s so unbelievable about Caspar?

Caspar jerks a thumb at the bathroom. “Didn’t you install some new cameras in there? They record audio, don’t they?” He gives her enough time for realization to dawn on her face before bringing his arm back and throwing a quick punch to the side of her head, and Kronya topples onto her side, knocked cleanly unconscious.

Linhardt stares down at her prone figure, then spits on the floor. “Her voice is annoying.”

“I know.” Caspar catches him before he can slump onto the ground and brings him back to the bed instead. “How are you feeling? You’re not hurt, are you, Lin?” he can’t help but fret—now that the initial danger has passed, the adrenaline that had previously flooded his body is almost immediately being washed out and replaced by concern. “I swear, if you even have the tiniest bruise tomorrow, I’m going to—”

“I’m fine. Calm down.” Linhardt buries his face in Caspar’s neck for a long moment, inhaling deeply and sending shivers down Caspar’s spine that he desperately tries to ignore. “Are _you_ alright, Caspar?” he asks, voice muffled against Caspar’s shirt. “She almost… the lamp…”

“Oh, yeah.” Caspar cranes his neck and catches sight of the lamp lying on the floor a few ways away. It hadn’t dropped from a great enough height for it to shatter, although he suspects it’ll be sporting a few new cracks tomorrow morning. “The lamp’s fine, Lin. Might wanna take a look at it later, but it’s not bro—”

Linhardt draws back, a heavy frown on his face. “Caspar, I do not care about the lamp. I asked about _you._ ”

“Oh,” Caspar says again, stupidly. He blinks, tries to come up with something coherent, but the dial tone in his head isn’t helping things. “I’m fine too,” he manages, going for a sheepish grin. “Thanks for the help back there. Couldn’t have done it without you. Um, I should… shove Kronya in the bathroom or something, there’s a lot of blood—”

He pulls away before Linhardt can protest, even if those dark blue eyes are staring at him like there’s something Linhardt wants to say. If Caspar’s being honest, he’s pretty sure he knows what Linhardt had been about to bring the conversation back to, and Caspar would rather not talk about something like that with an unconscious bleeding stalker in the same room.

 _Ugh…_ He’d phoned the police earlier while Linhardt had kept Kronya talking, but he has no idea how long it’ll take them to get here. Hopefully before the girl bleeds to death. Caspar drags her into the bathroom, has her lean against the wall and as far away from the door as possible, and then retreats back into the apartment. His phone dings with a text from Ashe saying they managed to crack the laptop open—funny, considering Caspar doubts that’s the reason Ashe and Yuri would still be awake this late in the night—and that they should all meet up tomorrow morning to show it to the authorities.

“Done burying the body?” Linhardt asks, still sitting on the edge of his bed. Caspar swallows back his nervousness—he can hear it already, the question that’s been lingering over their heads for the whole day, waiting for its chance to strike. And here it is, Caspar supposes.

Alright. He can do this. He has to. He’ll tell Linhardt how he feels, apologize profusely, and then go through the script he’s been steadily writing in his head for the past five hours. Caspar is a professional. He can do this.

“Yeah, I guess,” Caspar answers. He hovers uncertainly for a moment, unsure if he should sit on the bed beside Linhardt or remain standing, settling on the latter in the end. He’d really rather not be any closer to Linhardt than absolutely necessary right now. “So, uh. You’re safe now! You should be, anyway. I don’t trust the police with, like, anything, but hopefully they can do their job just this once.”

Linhardt doesn’t smile, or look relieved, or… anything Caspar had been half-hoping for, really. He probably should have expected that. “Yes, and I have you to thank for that.”

“N-No, it’s… it’s just my job, you know…”

“Really?” Linhardt tilts his head. “Is that all I am to you? Just a job?”

“No! Come on, Lin, you _know_ it’s not like that,” Caspar protests. Linhardt doesn’t respond, still looking patiently up at him, and Caspar fumbles for his next words like an idiot before mumbling, “Of course I care about you. We’ve been over this, like, a bunch of times now.”

Linhardt reaches out and takes Caspar’s wrist, tugging him closer—Caspar takes a few unsteady steps, stopping just in front of Linhardt. They’re so close now that the way Linhardt is craning his neck to look up at Caspar must be painful. “And I care about you too,” he says, probably unaware of how his words make Caspar’s heart rattle noisily around in his chest. “So I want you to be honest with me, and answer my ques—”

“Yes!” Caspar shouts, screwing his eyes shut. “Okay, yes, fine, yes, I do like you, Linhardt! And n-not in a friend way! That’s as honest as I can get, alright!?”

Linhardt blinks. “Oh. Okay. Well—”

“I can sleep on the floor or in the bathroom,” Caspar barrels on. If he stops now, he might never work up the nerve to say any of this again. “I just can’t agree to leaving you alone in here because I kind of need to do that, but I can stay as far away from you as possible. I won’t even talk! I’ll be real quiet. It’ll be like I’m not here. And of course I’ll never, _never_ act on my feelings. I swear on, um, my grave or… whatever.”

Did he miss anything? Shit. His brain feels like a piece of paper that was balled up and thrown into the ocean. Damn it, he’d only counted three points, and he’s _sure_ he’d thought of at least seven a while ago. Caspar knew he should have written it down somewhere.

Linhardt waits a moment longer, then asks, “Done?”

Caspar nods miserably. “Technically I’ve got more to say but I kinda, uh, forgot. I’ll remember them, just give me a minute.”

“I’m not giving you a minute.” Linhardt’s hand moves from his wrist up to his arm, shoulder, neck… his fingers grip the collar of Caspar’s shirt tight enough that his nails threaten to tear straight through the fabric. “You like me?” he repeats, softly, almost vulnerably. “You’re sure about that?”

Caspar swallows. “Y… Yeah. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t—”

“Don’t you dare apologize,” Linhardt orders. Caspar gets exactly one second to wonder why his voice had cracked at the end before Linhardt yanks him down and presses their lips together.

It is perhaps the worst kiss Caspar has ever had. The angle is way off, so their noses and foreheads bump together—Linhardt had pulled him down too hard, so their mouths meet with enough force to bruise—Caspar loses his balance, so he ends up stumbling onto the bed, pushing Linhardt to lie on his back. There are long green strands of Linhardt’s hair in his mouth, and even more tickling his nose until Caspar has to stammer, “Hold on, hold on, I’m gonna—” and then he has just enough time to turn his head before he sneezes. Linhardt is staring up at him, eyes wide, and then he’s laughing harder and louder than Caspar’s ever seen before, even freer and happier than he had been on that rainy day under the bus stop.

It is perhaps the _best_ kiss Caspar has ever had.

“Caspar.” Linhardt reaches up, brushes hair out of his face.

Caspar stares down at him. He’s getting more and more accustomed to the darkness, and it’s easy to see Linhardt like this, a soft smile on his face, moonlight glimmering in his eyes. “Yeah?”

Linhardt looks thoughtful for a second. “Nothing. I just wanted to say your name.”

“Th…” Caspar’s head is spinning again, and it is definitely not because a stalker lady is kicking him in the face. “Wait. This means you… like… like me, right?”

“I thought _kissing you_ would have made that obvious, if everything else hadn’t already,” Linhardt sighs, fondly exasperated. “Honestly, Caspar. I climbed on top of you on the bed and asked you if you liked me. If you had answered as you did just now,” he says, faux-nonchalantly, “we probably could have done this much sooner.”

Caspar blinks. “Oh. Right…” In retrospect, that probably _was_ sort of a no-brainer… okay, not _probably._ Definitely. Absolutely. Holy shit. Linhardt had _climbed atop him_ and _pinned him to the bed._ “Oh my God,” he says. “I’m an idiot.”

Linhardt shakes his head. “I like you.”

“I—okay. Yes. I-I like you too, Lin, I do. But this is—”

Linhardt leans up and kisses him. “I like you, Caspar.”

Caspar’s head feels ready to spin right off his neck. “That—I—but I’m—you’re a client—”

Linhardt kisses him again, harder and deeper and hotter. “I like you, Caspar,” he repeats, voice low and suggestive. “And I can do this all night, for as long as you need convincing.”

“But…” Caspar swallows again, trying to ignore how Linhardt looks and feels beneath him, because that is the absolute last thing that would be helping him in this situation. “It’s… kind of… unprofessional? I mean—I mean, it’s like, it’s like if you fell in love with—with someone from… Seiros. Or if you fell in love with… Bernadetta, that dressmaker. Or if you… well, you get what I mean, right?”

Linhardt looks contemplative. “So is this what this is?” he wonders aloud. “Love?”

“Ah… hah.” Caspar should have known Linhardt would only hear what he wanted to hear. “I… I don’t know. M-Maybe? I mean—well—” God, maybe it’s just the lateness of the night or the near-death experience—okay, that might be exaggerating it a little, but whatever—but all Caspar wants to do right now is throw away the whole professional-spiel and just kiss Linhardt like his life depends on it.

Linhardt waits a little longer, but when Caspar can’t arrange his racing thoughts fast enough, Linhardt speaks again. “I won’t force you if you don’t want to, then,” he says, very quietly. “But I like you, alright, Caspar? It would be unprofessional if we had some sort of uneven power dynamic, maybe, or if I were pushing you into it… sort of like what I almost did with Byleth. But I’m not. And you like me back.” Now he’s the one who can’t seem to meet Caspar’s eyes, looking somewhere at his neck instead. “Strangely enough.”

“Wh— _strangely enough?_ ” Caspar splutters. “There’s nothing weird about liking you, Linhardt, and it’s not just ‘cause you’re all pretty and stuff! You’re a good person, you like cute things and you always get invested in tiny interests and I love hearing you talk about them and…” He trails off the instant he feels his cheeks burning up. “You… You know.”

Linhardt hums. “I think I quite like it when you compliment me.”

“I’ll compliment you as much as you like,” Caspar mutters. He can’t imagine something like that ever being a chore, considering he doesn’t think he could ever run out of things to compliment Linhardt about.

“And you could.” Linhardt leans up again until he’s speaking right against Caspar’s lips, warm breath against his mouth. “If you want to.”

His fingers are dancing along Caspar’s forearm, and suddenly all Caspar can think about is how tight Linhardt’s grip would be, how hard he might tug at Caspar’s hair. “O-One thing,” Caspar stutters. “I need you to do one thing first.”

“Oh, no problem,” Linhardt says, surprising Caspar. He brings his hands closer to himself, then pulls off each of the green and blue rings on his fingers one by one until they’re bare, with only faint imprints in the spaces they used to be. “This is what you meant, right?” he asks, pressing a kiss to the underside of Caspar’s jaw. “I don’t mind for now, but these are my nicest set of rings. So I’ll be expecting an even nicer one from you soon enough like you promised, hm?”

“I _swear,_ Lin,” Caspar eventually manages, when he’s had his fill of Linhardt’s fingers without the rings, “you are going to give me a heart attack before I can actually earn enough.”

This time he kisses Linhardt first, hands coming up to cup his cheeks, and Linhardt wraps his arms around Caspar’s neck in turn. Caspar remembers to tilt his head to the side too, and when he prods Linhardt’s mouth open to lick at the inside of his cheek with tongue, Linhardt lets out the softest, yet also somehow the hottest, moan Caspar has ever heard in his life. “You have no idea,” Linhardt breathes, when they separate for air, “how long I’ve waited for this.”

“Sorry for making you wait,” Caspar apologizes, because it’s polite. He climbs up onto the bed to straddle Linhardt, reversing their positions from this morning… or so he thinks, because Linhardt immediately nudges Caspar to lie on his back instead so Linhardt can settle himself comfortably atop his lap. “Aw, come on,” Caspar says, grinning, “even in bed I still have to look up at you?”

“Your fault for being short,” Linhardt responds easily, and Caspar can’t even get mad at him when he kisses him so _good,_ their lips sliding against each other’s, hot and wet with their own saliva. Like this Caspar can hold onto Linhardt’s waist, thumbs digging against his hip bones, and their chests are pressed flush together… among other body parts, anyway. Caspar groans in the kiss when Linhardt shifts ever so slightly, thigh nudging against a _very_ sensitive spot. “Oh,” Linhardt notes, sounding pleasantly surprised, “already?”

Caspar bumps their foreheads together. “Dude, you were fondling me in your sleep, like, ten minutes ago. _Not_ my fault.”

“Oh, yes I was. Thank you for the reminder.” Linhardt slips his hands under Caspar’s shirt and lifts it up meaningfully—Caspar raises his arms, just surprised Linhardt’s willing to put in the effort, and lets Linhardt pull his shirt off of him. For a long moment, all Linhardt does is stare almost _admiringly_ at Caspar’s bare upper body, gaze roaming from his throat down to the light trail of hair leading down to beneath his shorts. “Do you remember when we first met?” Linhardt asks, though he seems too busy ogling Caspar’s chest to meet his eyes.

Caspar tries for a grin. “Sort of? It was pretty long ago.”

“I wanted to drive you away, so I was working myself up to be a bitch,” Linhardt says. Caspar wonders if he needs to drink some water first, because he speaks like his throat is drying up. “But, er, well. When you took off your jacket, I…”

He trails off, and it takes Caspar a second to understand what he means. “Holy shit. Is that when you fell for me or something?”

“I fell for your chest first.” Linhardt reaches out and splays his hands out over Caspar’s pecs, squeezing them as if for emphasis—Caspar does his best to bite back a yelp, but a small, embarrassed sound escapes him anyway. “The rest of you came after.” Then he shuffles around until he can bend his head and flick his tongue over one of Caspar’s nipples.

“ _Ah—_ shit, Lin,” Caspar groans, one hand coming up to tangle in Linhardt’s hair. It feels even better than when he does it himself during one of his bathroom breaks, or when Linhardt had touched him just a while ago—Linhardt takes the hardening nub in his mouth, tongue teasing the sensitive skin while one of his hands plays with the other nipple. “Lin—Linhardt, I… h-hold on…”

Linhardt doesn’t speak, obviously, though he does hum in response, and the vibration has Caspar tightening his grip on his long green hair—which leads to Linhardt drawing back with a shuddering moan, his cheeks flushed and his eyes half-lidded. “Cas,” Linhardt murmurs, voice breathy, and the nickname throws Caspar’s entire body into a state of chaos. “I… Do you want to keep going?”

“Definitely,” Caspar says, nearly surging forward in excitement. If Linhardt were to change his mind and leave Caspar alone with his aching hard-on now, Caspar will probably have to jump off the balcony or something.

“Okay—alright—good.” Linhardt swallows thickly. “Give me a moment.” He slides off Caspar’s lap, digging around in the dresser drawer for a while, before returning to his previous position with… _oh._ “Would you like to do the honors?” Linhardt asks, uncapping the bottle of lube—he seems to have regained a bit of his usual composure, though his face is still redder than Caspar can remember seeing it. “Or would you like a show instead?”

“I, I, uhh.” This has got to be the hardest decision Caspar’s faced in his twenty-something years of living. “I mean, I… I’m cool with either?”

Linhardt sighs. “You _have_ had sex before, right?”

“Well! Yeah! Of course!”

“Then you can do it.” Linhardt hands him the lube, and Caspar takes it without thinking. “I want you inside as soon as possible. I’m patient, but not _that_ patient.”

Oh, God. This is it. Caspar looks down at the lube, then looks up to watch Linhardt pull off his own shirt (…wait a minute, that’s one of Caspar’s old shirts, when the hell did he steal it?) and kick off his shorts. “Hold on,” Caspar says, laying a hand atop Linhardt’s wrist when he makes to pull down his underwear. “I-I’ll do it.”

“So you’re finally taking initiative,” Linhardt teases.

Caspar’s seen Linhardt in various states of undress by now, including fully naked unless the ropes used for bondage count, but as soon as Caspar tugs his underwear away, it’s a different story entirely. “I know you get this a lot,” he manages, through the whirlwind of thoughts in his head, “but… you’re gorgeous, Lin. Like, I don’t even understand how you’re real.”

“Sweet-talker,” Linhardt mumbles, but he’s still blushing, so Caspar will take that as a win. “Hurry up, will you? I’d rather not the police get here in the middle of things.”

The very thought of anything and anyone interrupting them right now is one of the best motivators for the situation. Caspar dumps lube all over his hand, rubbing it between his fingers for a moment before reaching beneath Linhardt and experimentally nudging at his ass with one of his cleaner fingers. “You’re sure, right? You’ll tell me if I hurt you?”

“Yes,” Linhardt answers, that breathy voice of his coming out again, “and you won’t.”

Those words should _not_ turn Caspar on as much as they do, but he can’t help the blood rushing to his dick at the implications. Linhardt adjusts himself so that he’s kneeling atop Caspar’s lap instead, his spread thighs and hard cock a sight Caspar wants seared into his mind’s eye, and Caspar finally gathers the nerve to rub at his entrance. Linhardt exhales harshly, hands reaching up to grip onto Caspar’s shoulders for balance. “Go on,” he urges, when Caspar doesn’t move.

“Sorry, just…” Caspar shakes his head. “I can’t stop looking at you. You’re so… I don’t…”

Linhardt dips his head briefly to press a kiss against Caspar’s forehead, quick and fleeting. “You can look all you like, but surely you can multitask.”

That’s certainly not wrong. Caspar rubs again, firmly but slowly, until Linhardt relaxes enough for him to slip the first finger into his hole, drawing a soft, sweet moan from those plush pink lips. “That’s right,” Linhardt sighs, and how is it that he manages to be so beautiful no matter what? “Keep going…”

“Lin…”

Caspar bites a kiss into his collarbone while pushing his finger deeper in, searching and prodding for _that_ spot, and adds another finger when Linhardt murmurs for him to do so. Caspar twists his wrist, sinking the two fingers in until the knuckle, and Linhardt jolts with a sharp moan, his grip on Caspar’s shoulders tight enough to bruise. “ _Yes_ —right there, Cas, oh—” He pushes his ass further down as if riding Caspar’s fingers, and drops of pre-cum spill from his cock onto Caspar’s stomach.

“So beautiful,” Caspar whispers, littering more kisses along Linhardt’s neck, his other hand squeezing Linhardt’s ass. He scissors his fingers near Linhardt’s sweet spot, and Linhardt throws his head back with a cry, strands of hair sticking to his sweat-slick forehead. “Do you like it? Do you want more?” Caspar asks, his voice so strained he barely recognizes himself. He’s so damn hard, and Linhardt making all those sounds does not help in the least.

Linhardt nods furiously, his eyes almost fully closed by now. “Please, yes, please,” he gasps, and yeah, he’s definitely riding Caspar’s fingers now, not faltering even when Caspar adds a third digit. “Want you—Caspar—I’m ready,” he says, somehow managing to sound decisive despite, well, everything. “I want you. Let me have you.”

Authority is creeping into his voice, subtly but surely, and _God,_ Caspar can’t even begin to imagine anything hotter than Linhardt using that voice on him. “Then have me,” he says, hoarse—he pulls his fingers out of Linhardt’s hole, ingraining the needy whine that draws from Linhardt into memory, and hurriedly shucks off his shorts. He’d normally be more embarrassed about the bulge in his underwear, along with the damp spot, but with the way Linhardt is staring almost hungrily down at both, Caspar supposes this is hardly something to be shy about. “Sure you’re ready?”

“I have never been more sure about anyone in my life, Caspar,” Linhardt says, enunciating each syllable with dizzying clarity. “So can you please get your dick inside me right now before I go hump a pillow?”

“You’re not humping anything,” Caspar says, grinning at the eye-roll that gets him. “Okay, okay—” He pulls off his underwear, his hard cock springing out like something from a bad porno, and Linhardt wraps a hand around him before Caspar can do anything else—his fingers are as long and slender as ever, and Caspar groans at the feeling. How many times has he imagined something like this happening? He can’t even begin to count at this point. “L-Lin—”

“Hold on, let me savor this. Mm…” Linhardt strokes him once, twice, and suddenly it’s turning into the best handjob in the history of handjobs. Caspar doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to look at Linhardt’s hands the same after this. “I remember when you woke up with this that one morning,” he muses. “It already looked big under clothing, but like this… and inside…”

Without warning he slides down until he’s eye-level with Caspar’s cock, and when he takes the leaking head in his mouth Caspar actually _yells,_ which is beyond humiliating, but it feels too _good._ Linhardt swirls his tongue around the tip, lapping up the pre-cum that had begun to gather, and he pulls back shortly afterwards, licking his lips as if satisfied. “That sounded like it felt good.”

“S… Shut up,” Caspar grumbles. Even his ears feel hot, and he doesn’t need a light to see how his blush has spread down to his chest.

“Oh, no, never.” Linhardt grabs the lube, pours a liberal amount in his palm, and slicks Caspar’s cock up in no time flat, barely even giving Caspar time to register what’s going on until Linhardt is up on his knees again, ass directly above Caspar’s erection. “Well? At this point I’m starting to wonder if I’m the one who was supposed to ask if you’re ready.”

“I _am_ ready, since you’re wondering!”

“Good,” Linhardt says, smiling prettily, before taking Caspar’s cock in hand and lowering himself.

Caspar leans his head back against the wall with a long, low moan when he enters Linhardt. He feels so sinfully _good,_ hot and tight and everything Caspar’s dreamed of and more. He reaches down to hold onto Linhardt’s waist before thinking better of it and moving further down to grip his ass instead, giving his pert cheeks a squeeze and getting a surprised, shaky whine from Linhardt’s mouth, hung open in pleasure. “That sounded like it felt good,” Caspar teases back.

Linhardt screws his eyes shut, his breaths beginning to grow quick and shallow. “It d-did.” He lowers himself further down on Caspar’s cock, and Caspar bites down on his bottom lip, watching entranced by how Linhardt’s hole swallows up his length all the way down to his balls. “God—ah—fuck, C-Cas… ah…”

“You’re so good, Lin,” Caspar murmurs, using one hand to bring his face closer to his own for a kiss. Linhardt sighs into his mouth, and for a moment it’s just that, just them—a kiss, slow and soft and so very tender.

Then Linhardt lifts his ass up and brings it back down, sending a sharp jolt of pleasure throughout Caspar’s body. “Fuck! Lin, that’s—”

“Fuck me,” Linhardt gasps out, nails digging half-crescents into the skin of Caspar’s shoulders. He repeats his earlier motions until he’s built up a steady rhythm, bouncing on Caspar’s cock as his own dick drips pre-cum everywhere. “I c-can’t—I can’t be the only one— _ngh_ —putting in effort here, can I?”

Caspar nips at his neck. “You’re right. God, you’re always right.”

He thrusts up, doing his best to match Linhardt’s pace, and shifts around until he finds the right angle to hit Linhardt right in the spot that makes him cry out and scream for Caspar to go _harder, faster, deeper, again again again._ And Caspar is just barely keeping himself from doing the same, because every so often Linhardt clenches around his cock and then Caspar is seeing stars in his vision, his dick aching with pleasure, urging him to fuck into Linhardt even harder, even faster. He moves one of his hands up to Linhardt’s chest, teasing a peaked nipple between his fingers, and Linhardt _sobs,_ burying his face in Caspar’s neck. “Cas, Caspar, I—I’m—”

“A—Are you close?” Caspar asks, somehow not stumbling too much over his own words. His head feels like it’s fogging over, hazy with lust. “I wanna see you come, let me see—let me see you, Lin,” he babbles, reaching down to take Linhardt’s dick in hand. Linhardt jerks into his touch with a whine, now attempting to both fuck himself on Caspar’s cock and fuck into Caspar’s hand, and the sight is absolutely intoxicating.

It only takes a few strokes until Linhardt is gasping, “Caspar, _Caspar,_ ” and then he comes into Caspar’s palm, wetness dripping down both of their thighs. “Don’t—Don’t pull out,” he slurs, head dropping to rest against Caspar’s shoulder, despite how his entire body quivers from orgasm. “Don’t stop, fuck me more…”

Caspar swallows. There is definitely nothing he wants to do more, but—“Lin, doesn’t it—”

Linhardt shakes his head, long hair an utter mess, and clenches around Caspar’s cock once more. Thrusting up into him is a knee-jerk reaction, and then Caspar curses under his breath because now he can’t stop—Linhardt is tightening for him, breathless _ah-ah-ah_ s escaping his swollen lips with each movement. “Do you like it?” Linhardt’s asking, lips tilted up in a crooked smile. “Do I feel good, Cas? Nice and tight?”

Oh, God, is this dirty talk? Caspar has no idea, because he’s utter garbage at it, at least according to his past partners, but Linhardt is definitely doing something right considering the words have his dick throbbing inside Linhardt. Can he feel that? He probably does, right? “Y-Yeah,” Caspar responds belatedly, trying to steady his grip on Linhardt’s ass. “So good… so good, Lin, I love… love you, fuck—”

Linhardt’s hands come up to rest on Caspar’s chest again, tweaking a nipple between his fingers. “Come for me,” Linhardt practically _orders,_ voice demanding absolute authority, and Caspar muffles his moan into Linhardt’s shoulder as he comes, Linhardt clenching around his twitching cock as if to milk him of every last drop.

Caspar has no idea how much time passes, but at some point Linhardt gingerly lifts himself off his lap just to slump onto the bed instead, and Caspar automatically gets up to fetch a nearby towel and wipe them both down before rejoining Linhardt on the bed.

“So,” Caspar says, “that happened.”

“Mm.”

“Um…” Caspar turns on his side to face Linhardt, although Linhardt’s already closed his eyes, so it doesn’t really do much. “You do like me, right?” he whispers. “Just making sure.”

Linhardt sighs, but his lips are quirked up in an amused smile. “Yes, Caspar. Do I look like I would have sex with someone I _don’t_ like?” He opens his eyes, moonlight sparkling off the ocean-blue. “I’m not going to lose interest in you, if that’s what you’re worried about,” he adds, shifting closer to kiss the corner of Caspar’s mouth.

“That’s…” Caspar can’t deny that hadn’t been _one_ of his many concerns, even if it hadn’t been at the very top of the list.

But… maybe tonight he can just forget about all that. Just for now. Tomorrow Caspar can think about it a little more, run his worries over one more time just to make sure he’s not forgetting anything, and then he and Linhardt can have a nice long talk. But for now, all Caspar wants to do is fall asleep with Linhardt in his arms—or in Linhardt’s arms, honestly, he’s not picky—and open his eyes in the morning to a mess of green hair and their legs tangled together in the sheets.

“Did you mean it?” Linhardt asks, voice soft. In the distance, Caspar can hear police sirens on the way—took them long enough. “When you said you love me?”

“Yeah.”

Caspar had surprised himself with how easy it was to say the words, even in the heat of the moment. Maybe because it’s true—maybe because love can be both something complicated, filled with doubts and worries and concerns for the future, and something simple, something easy, something that reminds him of claw machine plushies and morning coffee in a cat mug and eyes like sunlight sparkling off the ocean waves.

He pulls Linhardt close for another kiss—now that he _can_ kiss Linhardt, he doesn’t think he’ll ever want to stop—and cards his hand through his long hair until the police sirens are loud enough to grate on his ears. “Okay,” Caspar sighs, pulling away and barely suppressing a grin when Linhardt leans forward to chase his lips, “I’ll go take care of the stalker in our bathroom real quick, Lin. Do you, uh, mind getting dressed first?”

“No.”

“Thought so.” Caspar pulls the blanket and wraps it around him until he’s more or less fully covered. Hopefully the police can just mind their own business and leave, although Caspar highly doubts that. “I’ll make sure this goes fast. You can sleep first.”

“Wait,” Linhardt says, grabbing Caspar’s wrist before he can move towards the door. His brow is furrowed, a blush coloring his pale cheeks, and then he tugs Caspar down for another kiss Caspar can’t help but melt into. “I love you too, Caspar,” Linhardt murmurs against his lips. “Please don’t leave for too long.”

“You—wait, you lo…?”

“Yes, of course I do.”

“Wait—but—” Caspar blinks rapidly. The sirens are so loud that he’s sure they’re parked right outside the apartment building now. “Wait, hold on. I thought I would’ve had to wait a few months before you’d say it back, if you would at all, and then I could, like, I don’t know, jump you or—”

Linhardt looks delighted. “Why, you can jump me right now. Reschedule the police visit.”

“I can’t do that! They’re not clients you can wave off, Lin!”

Linhardt deflates. “You’re no fun.” But he leans back, sinking into the rest of the pillows and blankets on the bed until he looks like he’s part of the bed itself. “Make it quick, alright? I might fall asleep before you get back to fulfill that promise, and I was hoping to discuss somnophilia some other time.”

“S-Somno…” No, Caspar can’t go talk to the police with an erection, damn it! He pulls on his discarded clothes, hoping he doesn’t mistake Linhardt’s for his own in the dark, but he can’t resist bending down for one last kiss on the crown of Linhardt’s head right as he hears heavy footsteps outside their apartment. “I’ll be back before you know it.”

Linhardt looks up at him. His expression is indiscernible, but Caspar likes to think he can tell how he’s feeling all the same. “Yes,” he murmurs, voice endearingly fond, “I know you will.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you very much for reading! i know this was originally just supposed to be a short oneshot for my part in a fic/art trade with mari, but it evolved into something as long as this... anyway, i hope you enjoyed reading this, because i definitely enjoyed writing it!! ❤
> 
> by the way, caspar does eventually get linhardt lots of rings. none of them are ever as expensive or extravagant as his old ones but he loves them all the more.

**Author's Note:**

> edit: alt drew [model linhardt](https://twitter.com/dctr_spoiler/status/1280156991873118208?s=21) too!!! give her love!!!!!  
> edit 2: [model linhardt](https://twitter.com/cawa_mawi/status/1281733764662456320?s=21) again by cala!!! thank you so much!!! 😭  
> edit 3: [LINNY BY ALT AGAIN!!!](https://twitter.com/drawingddoom/status/1283424688878710784?s=21) i no longer need to worry about deciding what clothes he should wear 😌  
> edit 4: [the three stages of linny](https://twitter.com/SweetReichel/status/1288628724137635840) by rei!!! look at that HOT STUFF  
> edit 5: [ouch lin ft. cat mug](https://twitter.com/jiemo521/status/1296584757497622529?s=21) by danie!!! caspar’s on the job!!!


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